Daytime "Soap Operas" I have enjoyed...

Daytime Soap Operas (excerpt of U.S. soap opera list from Wikipedia)

this is the list of the programs I watched:

·         Search for Tomorrow (1951–1986)

·         The Edge of Night (1956–1984)

·         As the World Turns (1956–2010)

·         General Hospital (1963–present)

·         Dark Shadows (1966–1971)

·         One Life to Live (1968–2012, 2013)

·         All My Children (1970–2011; 2013)

·         The Young and the Restless (1973–present)

·         Ryan's Hope (1975–1989)

·         Texas (1980–1982)

·         Loving (1983–1995)

·         Port Charles (1997–2003)

Quite a list, eh?  Those are just the ones I used to watch…. As you can see most of them are no longer in production.   ---I will attempt to take this in the order of which I viewed them. ….I am a critic, that is to say that I will be completely honest, in so far as I recall these programs, about what I think of the stories I viewed and (sometimes) the stories that followed the times I viewed these programs….  I miss most of these shows, I bid a sad and sorry farewell to so many characters I enjoyed, …and so many actors I appreciated….  I will name but a few herein:

The first daytime soap opera that I remember watching was actually Dark Shadows. I was a bit young, and I will freely admit that there was an attraction because these programs were considered “forbidden” –although my parents never tried to stop me from watching anything on television….(not meant as a judgment, because when I was child television was heavily censored, so the folks were not worried about what I was watching.)

I do not really remember much,…my (older) nieces talked about Dark Shadows, and they gave me their old copies of teenybopper magazines (16),…. So I knew that I was “supposed” to like David Selby (Quentin, the werewolf) and Jonathan Frid (Barnabas Collins).  It seems very strange to me now, thinking about my child-self reading the fluff pieces on these two actors, and the rest of the cast of Dark Shadows.  I don’t even think of this as having watched a soap opera—I think it is included in that category simply because it was aired in the late afternoon (in Chicago), during the soap opera portion of the television day. It was on at 3:00 in the afternoon, so I rarely watched it, because I had to be sick to be home at 3:00pm… (school let out at 3:30pm).  My main memory is of pretending to be sick around 2:00 in the afternoon, so that maybe I could go home a little early to watch Dark Shadows (usually on a Friday afternoon). 

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Most often I will say that the first soap opera I watched was One Life to Live.  This is because, by this time I was old enough to recognize it as a soap opera.  It was 1971… I was a little young for this kind of story I think…. I happened to see one episode in which Meredith and Danny were held hostage by bad men with guns.  I wanted to know what happened next, (the hook was set!) so the next time I had the chance I tuned in.  In this way I was introduced to Larry Wolek (Michael Storm) and his brother Vinnie, and to Wanda.  And then there were Victoria Lord (Erika Slezak) and Dorian Kramer (various actresses over the years).  And powerful story lines about love and hate and abusive relationships (Dorian and her lover, Mark Toland –Tommy Lee Jones!)  This was during a time when Joe Riley was missing…

Nancy Pinkerton as Dorian Kramer and Tommy Lee Jones as Mark Toland

Erika Slezak as Victoria Lord and Lee Patterson as Joe Riley

Fond memories of Asa Buchanan (the inimitable Phil Carey), and all of the Joeys --because they changed actors faster than we could keep up, but most memorably Nathan Fillion, (of whom I predicted, "we will be watching that young man for a long time to come....and so we are....Firefly, Castle....).

I watched One Life To Live until the day it went of the air.  Still the first "soap" that comes to my mind.

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The next soap I watched was The Young and The Restless.  I did not want to watch it, but my cousin turned it on, and once again I paid just enough attention to set the hook…. Whatever would happen between Jill Foster (Brenda Dickson back in the day) and Katherine Chancellor…. Phillip Chancellor (the elder) portrayed by Donnelly Rhodes. was still in the story, not yet having perished in the automobile accident.  And there were the Brooks girls, Leslie, Lorie, Chris, and Peggy… and Snapper Foster…. Long before the days of Victor Newman, and the former stripper (that’s right, not “dancer”, stripper) Nicki Reed…. Early on Victor was married to Julia and in their basement Victor had a jail cell built to contain a man he mistakenly believed that Julia was having an affair with….the storylines seem so preposterous now! At one point Nicki drugged Victor, climbed into bed with him, and “voila” not long after she was pregnant with Victor’s baby.  (My mother found this hilarious! “If he was drugged and unconscious he couldn’t… you know,….make a baby with her.”)  Mom let me watch Y&R after she learned that her favorite Chicago television personality Lee Philip and her husband were the geniuses behind the soap.

The long time feud between Jill and Katherine was what kept us tuning in to Y&R for over 40 years…Katherine Chancellor, “The Duchess”, Kay…. portrayed by the inimitable Jeanne Cooper.  A fascinating character, Kay was an alcoholic, “stole” Jill’s betrothed –a man much younger than Kay and married him!, Kay interfered in the lives of her friends, ran Chancellor Corporation, had a maid named Esther (the viewers love Esther- Kate Linder), Kay’s son Brock (Beau Kayzer) called his mother The Duchess.  I may not remember all of it exactly as it happened, but it was a wild, and fun ride….

Jeanne Cooper

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During one summer I started watching a lot more soap operas…eventually filled the day, from 11:00 am until 4:00pm for while…. In the mornings there were several soaps I watched, changing the station every time a commercial interrupted… Y&R, Search for Tomorrow, and Ryan’s Hope, for several months…. This always confused my mother, who only occasionally came into the room. 

Nothing about Ryan’s Hope really stands out in my memory, except for the antics of Delia, and I remember her being in love with Roger.  I guess I don’t remember it well, because I was only watching it for a few minutes at a time.  (Ilene Kristen and Ron Hale)

Delia and Roger

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Search for Tomorrow I remember, because there was a character called Susie, and she was about my age,…[ Cynthia Gibb (Susan 'Suzi' Martin Wyatt)]  Susie was married to Cagney McCleary (Matthew Ashford), and when Susie was killed I cried.  The character was near to my age….. the show went off the air not long afterward, but they had time to create a lovely ending, and Jo (Mary Stuart) bid the viewers “farewell”.  …and they all lived happily ever after…. Yeah right, in the soap opera world chaos reins…. But it was a nice thought.

Those were the 3 programs (Y&R, RH, and SfT) I remember watching “at the same time” by changing channels during the commercial breaks.

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And I watched All My Children….that Erica! But our favorites were Tad and Dixie,… Tad the former bad boy (Michael Knight) who had his heart melted by the naïve country girl Dixie (Cady McClain)…. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine….” They broke our hearts.  One of my favorites was Jackson Montgomery (Walt Willey) who tried to be the voice of reason for Erica.  And one of the funniest times was when Erica was mad at Adam Chandler (the wonderful David Canary) and she was throwing breakable objects at him….how we laughed!  Nina and Cliff, and Bianca- Erica’s daughter…. And all of the Martins, even the one who went up to the attic to get his skis and was never seen or heard from again…. And, Phoebe, and Donna and Chuck,…. Oh the memories!

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I don’t really know when I started watching General Hospital… but I remember Steve Hardy, Audrey, Jessie, and Lee Baldwin (Peter Hansen),.. Scotty Baldwin as a child! Yikes!! Diana, and Heather Weber…. And of course Luke and Laura (Anthony Geary and Genie Francis) –“The Left Handed Boy” wow, they sure had us tuning in every day to figure that one out! (by the way, the viewers never saw the left handed boy until after it was revealed who/what the left handed boy was)…. And Luke never raped Laura, that was a recreated backstory –because they always, ALWAYS, rewrite history to suit the current story line…..

Later on there were The Quartermaines…and oh my, what a hoot that family was, when they were all there, in the Quartermaine living room, sparing with each other…. And the time Alan married Lucy Coe and the red wedding dress….

Stuart Damon as Alan Quartermain and Lynn Herring as Lucy Coe

And later the death of BJ Jones….they broke our hearts when Tony said a tearful goodbye to his little girl.

And Robin and Stone…. If you weren’t watching, I cannot really explain… young love, AIDS, death….love, so much love for a boy with AIDS. Heartbreaking.

Kimberly McCullough and Michael Sutton as Robin and Stone

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Well, I have been writing this for a very long time… pausing to research some bit of information, or find the correct spelling of an actor’s name…. I wish I could mention all of the actors names, and go into greater detail about what I remember,…and embellish with what I have read in the research….

I did not write about all of the soap operas I watched over the years…. but here is where I finished:

It was the last night of a television channel called SoapNet.  The show was General Hospital…. Our beloved Robin Scorpio (Kimberly McCullough) was returning to her estranged husband, she stood   on the doorstep –she rang the bell, her husband Patrick Drake (Jason Thompson) opened the door…

…and with a great sense of release I knew that I was done. 

Finished watching daytime soap operas forever….  

.....have I turned the television on and tuned in to Y&R or GH since that day? Yes, but there is no investment for me –I can take it or leave it completely and totally behind me… so much so that I do not have television coming into the house…. No cable, no satellite, no antenna… I like it that way.  Soaps are not what they used to be, and I have wonderful memories……

Notice everything...

My Aunt Emma was a woman of few words.  If you were lucky enough to her you just laughed.  “Woman of few words” is a real understatement. My Mother, Emma’s younger sister, would go to visit her, and mom would say, “I have a question for Emma, I will be gone for a few hours.”  Truly, Mom would ask Emma the one question, and they would sit and say very little for hours, and only then, if Mom was lucky, Emma would say a few words meant as an answer to the question.  

Sometimes Emma could be drawn into saying more, but most often, she was done talking.

As those of us who knew her are aware,..Emma spoke very little.  Seeing her smile, well, that was a rare thing indeed…. In 42 years I think I saw her smile 4 times.  That was just her way.

The last time we saw Emma, my Mother and I, was in the year before she died.  We went to her son’s house, where she was living at the time.  We sat and talked,..Emma mostly listened, and then one of her great grandchildren came into the room.  The child announced, “Grandma smiled yesterday.  I wrote it on the calendar.”  We turned to Emma, and there it was! A smile! What a joy. What a lovely memory.

Gratefulness (on feeling like you belong)

There is a family who chooses to include me.  I cannot express my thankfulness for them.  They give me a great deal, inclusion, enjoyment, anticipation of future events.  Without anticipation of future events what reason do we have to make us want to go on....  their younger generations are a delightful group, and interested in stories of family traditions and ancestry.

This is the family of the eldest daughter of my step-father, not legally, but the man to whom my mother was married later in life.  My inclusion is partially due to my mother and her husband, and partially due to this family always including that extra person, partially related, and some of us not related by blood, but connected by what must be familial love.  The next generation from my own, the grandchildren of my stepfather, were youngsters when my mother and I entered the family scenario, and I suppose that helps.  I was around a good bit when these folks were children,..and though I was nearly an adult myself at the time, we had fun spending time together... I was still a willing participant in "the kids table" for holiday mealtimes.  I was happy to join in the children's games and fun time.

The creation of this nexus is not that happy a story.... it involves a period of several years, from the death of my own father, fracturing familial ties,... and on, to the exile of my person by a blood relative on the very crux of my mother's acceptance into her new husband's family.  I will leave that story for another time,...or keep it entirely to myself.  It has little significance to me now.  And this blog is not about that.

My gratefulness lies in the acceptance and inclusion of this family.  There is no familial angst here at all,....there is lively debate, and love and laughter.  This is a family to look forward to spending time with,...with whom to lose track of time while enjoying the laughter, debate, and love.  It is a place of gentleness, and ease of companionship.  This is true no matter which portion of extended family is also included.... large extended families of siblings, aunt, uncles, cousins, and grandparents... a gathering of generations as well.  If there is an ideal, or a "dream" family, this family approaches that ideal... and they are embarrassed that I have suggested it.

It is the day after Easter as I write this.  I am fresh and satisfied from having spent a pleasant afternoon of fellowship with my niece and her family in their home; including my nephew (her brother) with his family, and my stepsister and her husband.  Seven adults and four children. All were at the dining room table, and there was lively discussion from more than one direction. 

I am included in the major holiday celebrations every year, and invited to various birthdays and mini-reunions though the rest of the year.  These are times I do look forward to with gratefulness.

We do not share our gratefulness often enough in this life.

So I am writing this because I have a family I chose: a family who chose me, and I love them.

Thank you for thinking of me. Thank you for including me.

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Someone who matters to me

A cousin whom I love dearly has mental illness.  I do not remember when I received this information, but I do not think that it came as much of a surprise at the time.  Sadly I had come to the realization that there was something,…not quite right,… about her during one of our infrequent meetings over the years.  I did know that she had suffered a tragedy: the death of a beloved person.  But, first, I am writing this to share the memories of times that made me love her, memories of a rebel, who refused to fit in. I shall keep this as anonymous as possible.  For the purpose of this writing I will call my dearly loved cousin Phoebe.

Phoebe is 4 or 5 years older than I, and our closeness did come quickly, as she had a younger sister who was closer to my age, with whom I spent more time.  I spent several weekends with their family when in my early adolescence.  These were wonderful visits for me, as there were several sisters and, at times they took me in as if I were one of them.  Their generosity of acceptance was only displayed when other cousins were not present; nonetheless, (being an only child) I appreciate those brief tastes of the loving side of sisterhood.

It was near to my 13^th birthday the time I was dropped off at my cousin’s home only to learn that it would be just Phoebe and I that particular weekend.  I have no recollection of the reason for this.  When I arrived Phoebe was babysitting a family friend’s infant and 2 year old.  The 2 year old was unhappy and Phoebe was talking like a cartoon character and trying to get the little one to laugh.  I found this hilarious, and soon the child as well as Phoebe and I were laughing and having a good time.  I quickly forgot that I did not, at that point, know Phoebe well, and we fell into an easy companionship.

Left with much of a winter Saturday to entertain ourselves, Phoebe and I decided to bring the dog with us and carry ice skates down to the creek, which was frozen over.  The dog, a breed from the land of ice and snow, loved it, towing us along the creek as we jumped or skated around obstructions in the shallow creek bed.   With little warning the ice gave way!  (this creek is very shallow, we were in no real danger)  The two of us girls shrieked and each jumped to a different bank of the creek.  We were laughing, and realizing that we were now separated by the creek, we started to laugh more.  And we could not stop laughing!  The ice broken, neither of us was in any hurry to attempt a crossing at that point.  Somehow this became funnier and funnier, and we just continued to break into gales of laughter as we made our way back toward the house.  Honestly we laughed so much that it became a race to get to the bathroom.  Looking back, I wish that we humans never lost that ability to laugh freely and continue laughing for such a length of time.

Another encounter with Phoebe occurred a couple of years later… one of my nieces was staying with us during a summer.  We went to a family party at one cousin’s rural farm property.  There were many family members attending,..so many that the teenagers decided to play a game of softball.  My niece was a pitcher on a softball team where she lived, so she volunteered to pitch the game.  That was fine and well, she was not shy about getting out there and playing with a group she barely knew.  But there was some kind of dispute about the rules of the game, and she wound up going head to head with one of the more abrasive girl cousins.  It was at this point that Phoebe rose to the defense of my niece, revealing not only a rebel spirit, but her own disdain for the conceited behavior of some of the clannish cousins.  This only served to endear Phoebe to me, as I was never truly included in the clannish family, and had little desire to be one of them.

The next time I saw Phoebe she was married and had a baby of her own.  It was at the wedding of Phoebe’s younger sister.  Phoebe and I chatted and teased each other, and I did not see her again for many years, but she was cemented as a favorite person in my life. 

A few years later I held a picnic for the family at which appeared Phoebe’s mother, with Phoebe’s then 4 or 5 five year old child in tow.  Phoebe’s mother came over to me and whispered that Phoebe and her husband had had another child, but there had been a tragic event a couple of days previous, and that baby had died.  That was why Phoebe’s young child was with grandma for the weekend.  How terrible to lose a child so young, and how that can alter the rest of a person’s life tragically. 

I do not have the details of Phoebe’s mental illness, people still tend to whisper about such things, as if speaking in hushed tones takes away the awfulness of mental illness.  

I did not see Phoebe again for several years.  I now know that there were several visits to psychiatric institutions, none voluntary, in the intervening years.  I did overhear snippets of stories about conflicts with neighbors and family, so I knew that there were problems.  It was, in fact, quite some time before I learned of her “visits” to psychiatric institutions, and I know about those because Phoebe herself told me her stories.  The stories are not fleshed out with details, because Phoebe herself believes that there is nothing wrong with her, and believes that all of us share equally in that paranoia.

I saw more clearly the example of her problems during a period of time when we were joined by social media.  I tried to be loving and understanding during the social media friendship, but people with mental illness sometimes push the boundaries that the rest of us live by. At times they push the boundaries just too far, and, after asking Phoebe several times to stop, I had to block her entirely from that social media.  To be honest, I do not think that Phoebe knows that I blocked her.  I do still love Phoebe, and I think of her often, with fondness and with sadness.  It is hard to be a helpless bystander, and I am glad that we live far apart, but I remain aware of her illness, and am greatly saddened by it.

I see Phoebe every couple of years, and it never changes,… she starts by telling me what I need in my life, and occasionally mentions some paranoid thing –which I ignore by asking her a question as a means of changing the subject.  Thereby we are able to converse for as long as half an hour, if she is trying hard to remain in the present and hold on to some form of reality.

I remain in contact with one of Phoebe’s children, and I offer moral support, because that is all I can do.  I will inform this child of Phoebe’s that this was written, so that child will know that I love Phoebe, and I do wish that there was something I could do, but,… mental illness….  

Myself, I have what I call “issues”, but I thank God every day that I am able to fight within myself to remain in reality –however bizarre the realities of this day and age become.

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LEARN:

http://www.cmha.ca/mental-health/understanding-mental-illness/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/11/04/what-many-people-dont-get-about-mental-illness/

https://www.mentalhealth.gov/talk/friends-family-members/

walking in the rain... (when it rains, it pours...)

That's right, walking, not singing, not dancing, just walking... 
When I was 6 years old my mother got me a Morton Salt "bubble" umbrella, because "when it rains, it pours."  And then Mom let me go outdoors to walk in the rain with my new umbrella. I did not jump in puddles, I walked.  Up and down the sidewalk in front of our house, in Mount Prospect, Illinois, on Main Street.  [had I seen Walking In The Rain I am quite certain that I would have been singing and dancing in the rain.] 
Thus began a lifelong love of rainy days and thunder storms, and lightning ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning ), and clouds,... but not wind (sorry, hate wind,.. allergies and long hair, you know.) ...  For a few years thereafter I did take that bubble umbrella and walk in the rain, wherever we lived.

when it rains, it pours bubble umbrella

the girl was the handle

My Dad had a habit that my mother hated...he liked to stand in the open doorway, with his face close to the screen, and watch storms,... the harder it rain, the more it thundered, the more Dad loved it.  And the closer he got to opening the door and joining the storm.  And, much to Mother's dismay, I was the same... perhaps she regretted giving me that umbrella....  

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April 21, 1967 Tornado outbreak in northern Illinois

I was just a little kid.... we were at our lake house, on Fox Lake, in Antioch, Illinois.  There were windy thunderstorms, and my mother was able to convince me to leave the front room, with it's 4 large picture windows.  The next day my Father tried to call my brother, back in Des Plaines, at the families greenhouses, at least I am guessing that he tried to call.... In any event, the three of us, Dad, Mom, and I, got in the car and started heading home to Des Plaines, Illinois.  My memory of it that it was as if we were among the last people on the planet.  There was very little sign of life in any of the areas we passed through, on our way down Fairfield Road and onto North Old McHenry Road, through the Lake Zurich area.... when we crossed North Midlothian Road and my parents exclaimed, in hushed voices, over the devastation of a trailer park that had been located along the south side of Old McHenry Road there. 

Sitting in the back seat of the big Oldsmobile, I can remember sensing my parents rising alarm and the devastated scenes along the way, and the fact that the world seemed deserted....  we went down Arlington Heights Road (which in those days was still a gravel farm road), and the further along we went the more boarded up storefronts my parents saw, and the more alarmed they became.  Dad and Mom in the front seat of the car, speaking in hushed tones, unaware that I was sensing their increasing alarm. Finally we arrived at the greenhouses, only to see that there was no destruction at all, only a few large branches had fallen from the huge trees out front.....  and then my brother, John, came walking over from his home on the north part of the property.  Yes, it had been quite a storm, but the huge, glass, greenhouses were intact, everyone there was safe.  (that is where my memory of the event ends....)

[for more information check out this link:  April 21,1967, northern Illinois tornadoes

There were 3 recorded F4 tornadoes: in Belvidere, Illinois where the high school was demolished, in Lake Zurich, Illinois, and in Oak Lawn, Illinois, as well as several F2 and F1 tornadoes.]

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I have seen some very scary looking clouds:  

which happened to precede some serious thunderstorms and tornadoes across parts of Indiana and Ohio a few years ago....  I had been driving a tractor-trailer down out of Wisconsin on I-39, south of Madison, and in the distance the sky was troubling.... it was dark in the distance at 10:30 in the morning, and I was just pressing on, hoping to reach my destination before the storm hit. 

I arrived at the appointed location to park the vehicle, and the photo above, with the swirling, "boiling" clouds is an excellent representation of what I was seeing.  I stood on the pavement, spellbound by the awesome and terrifying clouds in the sky... several workers came out of a nearby warehouse, and we all just stood silently for several minutes.... some of us took pictures (below are a few of mine),.... and there were whispers of "tornado" and "no funnel", all hushed by the fearful appearance of those clouds.  After several minutes we all returned to our duties, but with a little fear in the heart.

Later that day, as those same clouds moved off to the south and east, they erupted into fearsome wind storms and spawned tornadoes as well. (This was June 29, 2012)

9933 North Alpine Road, Machesney Park

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On April 12, 2014 I was trying to exit a Walmart store when I captured video of a hailstorm.... 

                                   

It was impressive... I approached the exit door and instantly realized that I could capture the moment from the perfect vantage point.  It was a bit fearsome.  It was difficult to walk to the car afterward, crunching on the icy pellets and trying not to slip and fall,... the hail stones crunched loudly under the car tires.

And, along the way, in my travels I have taken countless pictures of clouds, not to mention hundreds of times I was awed by the beauty of clouds, but did not have a safe opportunity to photograph said clouds.  

Should you be wondering, as of this posting (April 5, 2017), in my entire life I have never witnessed an actual tornado, not even from a distance. I hope I never do see a tornado.

The skies can be mesmerizing in any conditions, but clouds,... clouds can so beautiful and awesome....  and I could go on and on....