Soap Opera Fan!… by JoAnn

A cartoon of two soap opera bags with horns on them.

When I was a little girl, my mama would tell me to either play outside or sit quietly, while she watched her “stories” on TV. Those stories were, of course, daytime soap operas. Mama only watched the CBS soaps. To my best recollection they were: As the World Turns, Guiding Light, The Edge of Night, and Search for Tomorrow. I know, very dramatic titles, right? They usually ran 30 minutes each.   

Mama was a very early riser and worked hard as a stay-at-home mother and wife. So, by mid-day, when the soap operas came on, she needed a pleasant break. She would sit in her favorite chair, often with her lunch and a cold drink, and enjoy her stories. It didn’t take long for me to realize these stories, as she called them, were pretty interesting. I took after my mama and learned to appreciate the entertainment soap operas offered.  

By the time I was a teenager in the early 70s, I added a new soap opera to the CBS lineup: The Young & The Restless. They took a more modern approach to their characters and storylines. I was hooked! So was my mama and my older sister, Jeanie. We all three watched the new soap whenever we had the chance. If my sister and I had to miss it, our mama would fill us in later. Jeannie even bought the soap opera magazines that were published just for the people who couldn’t watch the episodes daily but wanted to keep up.  

Later on, when my sister and I were both married and raising families, we would talk on the phone often to each other and our mother. It never failed that the topic of our favorite soap opera would come up somewhere in the conversation; what character was doing what with whom, and where and why! I was even a pen pal to my favorite aunt who also loved the soap, and we would often write about the latest goings on in our letters! We were all loyal fans. Heck, I still am.

We may sound a little crazy, or rather misguided with our love for Y&R, as fans refer to it, but the statistics don’t lie. Young & Restless has been successful for over 53 years! It has held the spot as the #1 watched daytime soap opera for many of those years.  

I’m not sure if my sister Jeanie still watches Y&R, as it has been a very long time since the topic came up in one of our conversations. She works full time still, and I doubt she is home to watch, but with the wonderful technology we have today, if you miss an episode of any television show when it’s broadcast, you can be sure to catch it online. I often catch up with my favorite characters of Y&R just that way.    

The show’s original theme song “Nadia’s Theme†still plays at the end of every episode, and with every note I am reminded of the enjoyment I shared all those years ago with my mother, sister, and aunt. Lots of times we would be busy somewhere in the house and hear that theme song start to play. We would drop what we were doing and run to the television set before we missed something important. There was no rewinding a scene or recording an episode as televisions can do today.    

My mother has been gone for 20 years, and my aunt for ten. I truly miss the little things with both of them, even something as silly as watching a “story”. I’m happy Y&R is still on after all these years. It’s a sweet reminder of two women I love.