I haven’t watched All My Children in years, but today I set my DVR so I could sit quietly later and watch the last broadcast episode of the show. Alone, in case I cry. I used to watch it all the time, either with my friends in college or on VHS while making dinner in the kitchen when technology allowed for time-shifting. My sister and I could spend hours talking about what was going on and who was in and who was off the show. I sometimes wonder what I did with all the extra time I got back in my life when I stopped watching.
I can’t remember when I actually stopped recording segments, I think I just realized I never had time anymore to sit down and watch all the episodes that had piled up on video. Too much life interfered with my escape from reality and so, one day, I was just done. But I never stopped caring, and I always glanced up at the TV monitors in the newsroom to check out who was still on.
Then, a few years ago, a dream assignment! We started producing weekly soap opera updates to send to our affiliates and guess who got to meet the soap star each week to record their script? ME! Throw me in the Briar Patch!
Week after week I got to meet the newest, hottest stars from All my Children and One Life to Live. Sometimes they would walk through the newsroom and all the other writers and anchor’s heads would turn, watching Cameron Mathison walk through as his character had some hot, shirtless scene on the monitor above his head. Did I tell you I love my job?
They were the nicest bunch of people, and it was like catching up with old friends, since of course I felt like I knew everything about them. Or at least about their character. And of course I called my sister each week to tell her who came up to record and if I met someone new. I stopped producing that over a year ago, but it was such fun while it lasted!
I am so sorry to see the show go off the air. It will be strange to look up at the TV’s and not see Susan Lucci and Cameron and Michael E. Knight, and Angie and Jessie and everyone else who I have practically grown up with. I know a lot of people feel the same way. I hope they really are continuing the show online. I still won’t have time to watch, but I’ll know they’re there.
And I will always have this picture…..and all my memories.
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