My mom was devoted to All My Children. She started watching it the first year it was on, and she watched it (and still watches it) every day that she can. When we got our first VCR in the early 80s, it was so she could tape the show. (In theory, anyway. She never quite figured out how to work the tricky VCR).
I didn't really watch it, but I knew all of the characters because it was on during the summer months when I was home during the day. And when I went to college, the girls on my dorm floor watched it. I couldn't get away from it.
It was so popular with the college kids that my radio station WPGU aired "All My Kids" updates every night, and wouldn't you know it, by the time I left college I found myself hosting it. Now I really had to watch it. My roommates watched it too, and noticed that my girlfriend at the time had a striking similarity to the girl that played the character "Hillary."
"Just a coincidence," I said.
I stopped watching it as soon as I graduated college, and I haven't watched it since, but every now and then when I'm at my mom's house, she'll have it on and I'll catch a few moments. Many of the same characters are still on the show 25 years later.
I can't say I'm really going to miss it too much, but my mom is going to be crushed. They say that the ratings have declined, that today's moms are all working and therefore don't spend their days watching soap operas. I guess that's why this feels like more than just the cancellation of a show.
It feels like the end of an era.
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