Exciting Soap Operas and Game Shows Entertained My Grandmother

Soap Operas and Game Shows

My grandmother loved her soap operas (stories is what she called them) and game shows. The Young and Restless. The Guiding Light. As the World Turns. The Edge of Night. Wheel of Fortune. Those are the ones I remember her watching the most.

For those of you who are too young to remember, a soap opera was by definition: A soap opera is a radio or television serial dealing especially with domestic situations and frequently characterized by melodrama and sentimentality.^[1] The term soap opera originated from radio dramas being sponsored by soap manufacturers. To see more about the history of soap operas click here.

My mother went back to school to get a college education and so my brother and I spent a lot of time with her mother, Grandma Layne. My brother played outside while Grandpa Layne watched him but I stayed inside with Grandma. She got all her house work done by the time her stories came on and then we watched them, one after another until they went off. Looking back I’m not sure this was a good idea. I couldn’t have been more than 8 when mom went back to school and watching hours of fictional drama may have given me a somewhat skewed vision of the world. Back then ( the 60s) they weren’t as explicit as they are now about relationships and truthfully I think a lot of it went right over my head.

Grandma Layne knew the names of all the characters in every soap opera and the history of their eventful lives. I’m sure it provided excitement which was rare at their house. The most exciting thing I remember about being at her house was watching her chop off the chicken’s head every Saturday morning, plucking it and then frying it up for lunch or supper. I stayed in the house and watched through the window. No way did I want that chicken any where near me.

Fast forward to the 80’s and my children’s baby sister, Dorothy, also watched soap operas. My children never sat still and didn’t watch them because they thought they were boring (which was okay with me). But Dorothy especially liked to watch them while she was ironing. And like Grandma, she talked to the characters and told them what they needed to do.

“She ain’t got no business doing that,” she’d shout loudly. “Don’t you go cheating on him,” she’d say and shake her finger at the television.

Of course they never took her advice but she didn’t stop giving it.

Game Shows

Grandma Layne also loved game shows. Every night after supper she watched Wheel of Fortune with Pat and Vana. As she got older and her hearing worsened, the volume on her television set got louder and louder. By the time she was in her 80’s she couldn’t hear the phone ring if the television was on. I lived just up the hill so if she didn’t answer I would walk down to her house just to make sure she was okay. Usually I could hear the t v blaring before I even reached her porch.

Grandma did a lot of things besides watching television. She read to all of her grandchildren. She cooked and made the best jams, jellies and preserves. She sewed on buttons, replaced zippers, patched our jeans and mended things when they needed mending.

She was a rock. A forceful peace in the midst of all storms. I still have one of her thimbles and I look at it from time to time and remember…..that being a mender of things is a very important roll in a family and in life. I think about her often…I think about the way she loved us.

Grandma knew how to give unconditional love better than anyone I’ve ever known. I miss that.

I miss her.