Fifty Years of GH

I started watching "General Hospital" when it first started on ABC TV fifty years ago.  I had to discontinue watching for various reasons:  my Mom didn't think it was an "uplifting" program, we weren't really allowed to watch any daytime TV, and I soon started college when I didn't have time for anything but reading and studying and trying to figure out how to pass a math requirement. But I watched long enough to get to know plenty about Dr. Steve Hardy, Nurse Jessie Brewer and the new nurse, Audrey.  These three characters formed the lovers' triangle that ruled the hospital before they were joined by children and other new characters who magically found themselves in Port Charles.  Then the program extended to a 60 minute time frame which fit nicely into my babies' nap schedules.  At this time, no one knew about my shameful addiction to this fascinating soap except close family members (who never passed up a chance to ridicule me) and my next door neighbor Andrea, a lifelong fan of "Days of Our Lives." Andrea taught me how to become a wise and mature fan, one who knew that dead soap characters usually come back to life and that the most complicated scenario that would do the most harm to the most people would likely be the newest plot development.

As the years went by, I grew accustomed to the new characters and GH settled into spinning its tales around the core threesome then around the Luke and Laura excitement and eventually into the complicated gangster/good guy life of Sonny Corinthos.  I fell in love with these people who became my secret friends and family members.  I could forgive them almost anything and it became a great pleasure to hate the really bad guys like Helena Casadine.  As far as everyone knew, I was spending my leisure time reading Shakespeare and Chekhov and only watched the PBS station on TV.

Then came the era of VCRs and I could record GH while I was away teaching during the day and view it after dinner when the family and school chores were finished for the day.  I started letting a few key people know about my viewing addiction and was pleasantly surprised to learn that others had secret soap watching habits too. I didn't feel so bad about wishing I could look exactly like Brenda Barrett.

"General Hospital" is celebrating 50 years of broadcasting this week.  Luke (Anthony Geary) was  on GMA this morning and the program will be featured on a special broadcast of "20/20" this coming Saturday night.  Laura, Frisco, Brenda, Helena, Lucy Coe and several others have all returned to do special parts in the current plot line.  They all look pretty good in spite of the "work" that's been done to their faces.  Luke looks the best.  In fact, he looks better now than he did when he was young.  Will he and Laura get back together?  How about Carly and Jax?  Will Felicia choose Mac or Frisco?  And when will Spinelli find out that Maxi is having his baby? And what's up with Britt and her evil mother? Will Robin come back?  I can make fairly accurate guesses about the answers to each of those questions all because  I'm a veteran GH watcher.  How many more years will this soap last?  My guess is that it won't last all that long because of "real life" drama on facebook and new TV reality shows. But I'm not too sure how I can make the transition to life without GH.