I have a confession

So I was helping my aunt last week. She was watching TV and the game show went off. All My Children came on. Almost guiltily, she said, "I watch that. Do you look at it?" I didn't but watched it with her. It made me think about soap operas in my past.

Then came the news that All My Children and One Life to Live were getting the ax. Both will be no more after September of this year. That definitely made me nostalgic.

See I grew up on soaps. Yes, I really did.

My mother was strictly a CBS watcher. She watched Young the Restless, Bold and the Beautiful (when it started), As the World Turns and Guiding Light.

I had an imaginary friend that was named after...a character from the Young and the Restless. Brock. Why yes, I did start early.

I can remember playing at recess in 1st grade and playing scenes that I knew from the Guiding Light with my friends. It was the whole Rita/Roger conflict, which was a definite adult storyline. It's a wonder mom didn't get phone calls.

When I got older, As the World Turns and Guiding Light became my favorites. I loved the supercouples of Margo & Tom, Lily and Holden, Reva and Josh, Bob and Kim, Nola and Quint, Sierra and Craig, Betsy and Steve, Courtney and Andy, Beth and Philip, Beth and Lujack. The scheming of Alan Spalding, Roger Thorpe, James Steinbeck, John Dixon, Lisa (with too many last names to mention), Lucynda Walsh.

What did I love most? The build up and getting together of couples. And even when they got together, it didn't mean they were staying together.

My aunt was sort of reluctant about telling me she watched All My Children. And I understand why. A lot of people put down soaps. I'll admit, they are melodramatic and overdone at times. They move slowly. Some storylines, you can tune out and tune back in a month later and still know what's going on. It's like any show, there are some bad actors and some really bad writing made all the worse by the daily grind. I always loved the sped up aging, which made no sense. One day a child would be in diapers, the next they'd be 5, and pretty soon after, they'd be 15 with hormones.

But think of how hard people in soap operas work. Every day, script writers have to have a script. Unlike primetime TV or movies, soap opera stars, writers, and productions crews work year round filming. There is no season to a soap opera. A soap opera cast is fairly sizable with more than 10-15 people and each have their own storylines. That's a lot of characters to keep straight.

Some great actors have started out in soaps. Meg Ryan, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, Marisa Tomei, Steven Weber, Hayden Panettiere, Billy Dee Williams, Parker Posey, Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon, Nathan Fillion. I know there are more but that's just a sampling.

Something interesting, soaps were some of the first shows to integrate African Americans into casts and move them from servant jobs to white collar workers. Soaps have tackled a mirage of topics, from alcoholism, bulimia, prescription drug abuse, HIV/AIDS, rape, and often were the first to do so. I still remember Margo Hughes on As the World Turns getting raped and finding out her rapist was HIV+ and the heartache while she had to wait on tests.

Sadly, both As the World Turns and Guiding Light are no more. Guiding Light holds the record as the longest running drama in radio/tv history from 1937 to 2009. After these last two cancellations, there will only be four soaps on daytime television.

I admit, I grew up on them. I think they contributed to my love of romance. Actually, I know they did that. I sometimes couldn't wait to tune and see if a couple would get together that day.

Would I be a romance writer and love romance as much as I do if I hadn't grown up watching soaps? I honestly don't know.

Mechele Armstrong
http://www.mechelearmstrong.com/