Guiding Light Memoirs • Chapter 1 • The Boy From Iowa’s Soap Opera Obsession •
Before I worked steps away from the Guiding Light soundstage in the CBS Broadcast Center, I was a kid in Iowa planning my afternoons around a soap opera.
My family built memories around the show. One of those memories changed my sisters' lives forever.
Watching Guiding Light with My Family
I want to tell you the story of a young girl with Down syndrome who couldn't pronounce her own sister's name until Guiding Light and Reva Shayne came along.
My older sister Peach got her nickname because of her initials: P.J., which turned into Peej and then finally Peach. She had Down syndrome and was the light of our whole family's lives.
Her favorite game was to give everyone an animal nickname. Mine was Giraffe, because I was taller than everyone else in the family. I felt fortunate because another relative, with a gap in between his front teeth, was called Rabbit.
Let me tell you, my ears were pretty big. I was always bracing for the nickname Elephant.
Peach loved her soaps almost as much as I did.
She even had a classic quote for soap opera cliffhangers. When a soap would end on a cliffhanger before a commercial break or at the end of an episode, she would always ask with a whispered gasp, "What now?!"
Her eyes wide, her jaw agape. Then she'd laugh. Loudly. It would make me laugh, too. I loved it.
She was a Guiding Light fan just like my mom and me. The three of us used to watch all summer long, while everyone else was outside playing in the oppressive Iowa summer heat. An air-conditioned living room, a TV, and family were all we needed to beat it.
I remember the routine well: the morning began with mom flipping channels between Search for Tomorrow and Ryan's Hope. Then lunch with the local news, followed by As the World Turns, Capitol (until The Bold and the Beautiful replaced it, jumbling up the entire schedule in the late 80s), my favorite, Guiding Light, and Edge of Night.
Watching Guiding Light together bonded my mother, sister, and me. There were always a lot of laughs, many surprises, and a few mandates from mother to cover my eyes when the soap got too steamy.
My earliest memory of Guiding Light was the 1980 opening credits. I remember golden rays of sunlight flickering through the leaves as the tree branches swayed in the gentle breeze. The Ritournelle theme by Charles Paul played as the camera slowly went out of focus. The words Guiding Light dissolved onto the screen in all caps on the lower right-hand side of the screen.
This theme felt classy and mysterious: the gentle strumming of the harp, with a high-pitched violin playing over it. It was quite beautiful. So simple, yet elegant.
Peach and I would always get excited when the announcer declared, "You're watching the award-winning Guiding Light," and then launch into an ad for Ivory soap, Pampers, Tide, or Sure deodorant.
I loved that guy's voice.
So did Peach. She'd often hold a hairbrush in front of her mouth and lower her register to mimic the warm, rich tone of his voice.
I hated nap time and realized that if I faked a nap until I heard that song, I could get up and watch Guiding Light, as long as I remained still. So, I'd lie on my mom's lap and quietly watch. Peach was almost always there too, and Guiding Light quickly became our comfort show.
Back then, the closing credits showcased an Emmy statuette rotating on screen as the announcer proudly declared, "This has been the award-winning Guiding Light."
"That's all," Peach would say in her announcer voice. She was always ready to bring that voice back into the fold; her hairbrush sat right next to her.
I wanted a shiny, gold Emmy award like Guiding Light had so badly. I hoped to earn one someday. Even as a young lad, I knew in my heart that I would work in television one day.
Summers Away from Springfield
Once summer was over, I could only watch Guiding Light on sick days home from school. It didn't take much to catch up.
When I turned 10, summers became more about vacations than soaps. I'd alternate years between camping along the Mississippi River with friends in Minnesota and visiting relatives in western Nebraska. Peach had to stay home. It would have been more fun with her along.
Minnesota camping trips meant no TV at all.
Summer trips to Nebraska meant as much TV as I wanted to watch, but with a caveat: it was antenna TV with bad reception. Of course, CBS had the worst reception out of the networks. We were out in the middle of nowhere, so we relied on TV stations in Denver for our programming, and we were not very close.
Riding in the back of a minivan on a ten-hour drive along I-80, Nebraska felt like a barren wasteland. If you live there, you know it is not a wasteland at all, but it is quite barren. It's a farming state. My family raised cattle and grew wheat to sell at market. That tradition continues today.
I would tune in at the beginning of each Guiding Light episode, but if reception was horribly bad, I'd go back outside to play with my friends. I usually ended up outside, frustrated that I was missing my show.
I remember one summer in high school, I travelled on a school trip. It was a month-long tour of France the summer before my senior year. Our chaperones gave us telephone time once a week in the evening. I purposely waited to call until 9 p.m. Paris time. I wanted to talk to my mom during Guiding Light.
I'd run to a payphone and dial home. My mother was dying for details about my trip, and I'd quickly tell her what we had done on our tour before impatiently changing the subject to Guiding Light and the stories I was missing.
Priorities. She sends a kid to France, and all he wants to do is talk about soap operas.
Mom would gently laugh and fill me in, and I'd hear Peach in the background with her trademark "What now?" followed by a guffaw.
Something good just happened, I'd think to myself. Peach only says that in response to cliffhanger moments. I did have the VCR set to record the show while I was gone, so I was excited to return home and watch. Especially after overhearing Peach's obvious rave reviews.
How Reva Helped Peach say Eva
When I returned, I had three weeks of Guiding Light to catch up on. That's a lot of Reva and several VCR tapes. But I was extremely eager to find out what I had missed while I was away exploring Paris, Normandy, Mont Saint-Michel, and the French Riviera. It was all I could think about during the long international flight home to Iowa.
Luckily for me, this was at the height of Reva's post-partum depression storyline and it was good. I had read in Soap Opera Weekly that it ended with Reva driving off a bridge, leading to her presumed death. It was major drama. The character was about to be written off the show; her death would come on location in the Florida Keys.
Peach sat with me as I caught up on my missed episodes. Her reactions were even more dramatic, since she knew what was coming. Then, during one of my binge sessions, when Reva was doing something over the top, Peach pointed at the TV and said as clear as a bell, "Reva!" followed by her trademark laugh.
Our sister's name is Eva, and Peach has never, ever been able to pronounce her name correctly. This milestone made the hair on my arms stand on end. Out of nowhere, Peach just said Reva without any issues.
So why can't she say Eva, I wondered. Peach always pronounced my sister's name as Ee-yuh-vuh, dragging out the middle syllables. Not Ee-vuh.
Peach laughed at my excitement and quickly corrected herself when I asked again who it was, while pointing to Reva.
"Ree-yuh-vuh," Peach said with a giggle.
Darn it, she switched back.
She's been playing us, I thought. She can totally say the name Eva. Or maybe not. Maybe adding an 'R' at the beginning of Eva makes it easier for her to pronounce? Since we were watching a recording, I paused on Reva's face. I asked Peach over and over, "Who's that?" and pointed at Reva.
Each time Peach said, "Ree-yuh-vuh," always with a giggle.
I was so annoyed. The mispronunciations continued for nearly an hour, then I pulled a fast one after she finally caved and pronounced Reva correctly again.
"Say Reva," I demanded.
She said Reva correctly. I did it again, and again. Then I tricked her. I said, "Say Eva."
Clear as a bell, Peach correctly said, "Eva."
I jumped up to my feet from the living room couch and cheered. So did Peach. I grabbed her and gave her a giant hug, then we jumped up and down some more. I called Mom into the room and asked Peach again, "Say Eva."
Peach's eyes brightened. She paused and looked at Mom. Then she looked back at me and said Eva correctly again. Mom was flabbergasted. After more hugging, we loaded up into the car and headed off to get ice cream.
I got a chocolate-vanilla twist cone. Peach got plain vanilla. Mom got a root beer float. As we enjoyed our treats, Mom asked us a question, "Daniel, Peach, do you love Guiding Light?"
As I nodded, Peach said, "I love Josh. He's my boyfriend."
We laughed. Then I asked, "What about Reva?"
"No way," Peach said possessively. Holding up her fist, she declared, "Josh is mine."
We shared a long laugh as we finished our treats and then headed back to the minivan. On the way home, we talked about when to tell Eva the news.
"She's coming over this weekend. Can we do it then?" I asked.
"Of course," Mom said.
That weekend, we demonstrated Peach's new skill, and Eva was so thrilled she started to cry. It was the first time Peach had ever said her name right. That Christmas, my gift from Eva was a book about Guiding Light's history.
I loved it.
Peach did too.
Together, we learned a lot about the Bauers, Spauldings, and Lewises. Peach would flip through the book obsessively. Whenever she came to a page that had a photo of Reva, she'd smile, get my attention, point to the page, and jokingly say, "Daniel. It's Ree-uh-vuh."
Seeing my eyes bug out of my head would cause her to burst into laughter.
Once that laughter ended, she'd always correct herself. Slowly and with purpose, Peach said, "Ree-vuh," before smiling and giving me a hug. Then a noogie.
Racing Home for Guiding Light
The summer before my European adventure, I attended summer school. To be safe, I learned to schedule the VCR to record my show so I wouldn't miss a thing.
I was attending Driver's Education classes. When lessons ended, there was only a short window of time to race home and watch. Unfortunately for me, I had no control over when I was getting picked up. It was usually a friend's parent who gave me a ride, and sometimes that parent needed to run errands.
So I always recorded the show.
Luckily, I didn't have a driver's license yet, because if I had, I'm certain I would have gotten a speeding ticket racing home to watch my soap. I did not want to have to binge-watch on jumpy, glitchy VHS tapes.
However, fast forwarding did have its advantages. I didn't have to sit through scenes I found boring or watch any commercials. It saved me a lot of time catching up on what I missed. The fast-forward feature was new to us in the 80s, and I loved it.
Of course, I always had the VCR scheduled to record at 2 p.m., but watching the show with Peach and my mom was more fun. Guiding Light was appointment television for the three of us. We each had different favorite characters, different reactions to the drama, and we loved giggling at each other when those reactions were strong.
Plus, watching it "live" during its timeslot was more exciting for some reason. Back then, we didn't have streaming or even DVRs. So it was up to the VCR, which was a relatively new electronic device in our household.
Mom was a housewife, raising eight children, while Dad was busy earning a teacher's salary. Bless him for getting us that VCR.
We used it a lot!
The News Between the Soaps
I can't be the only soap fan who also watched the local news every day. To be honest, it's why I became a broadcast journalist.
The local news anchors and reporters were celebrities in their own right. When Guiding Light was over, there was always a national news update at the top of the hour. I especially loved watching it for breaking news.
I was always curious about who wrote and produced the news. I loved watching the news anchors; they were local celebrities. Don't get me started on the unpolished reporters just starting out in a medium-sized television market. To me, watching them flub live shots was almost as fun as watching Reva declare herself the slut of Springfield.
The noon news was a staple in our home. It was when Mom, Peach, and I would eat our lunch at the kitchen table. As the news anchors told us about what was happening in our community, we'd devour our Alphabet soup and PB&Js.
When the news was over, I knew this meant a soap opera would appear on my TV next. But I always loved the final shot of the noon news. It was a wide shot, showing the set lights twinkle through a star filter.
The camera pulled way back, revealing the full news desk with the green screen sitting right next to it. The anchors shuffled through their scripts while chit-chatting under the news music. I wondered what they were saying.
No big surprise that future me became a broadcast journalist in New York City. I watched the news every day starting at a very young age. When I landed a gig at WCBS-TV as a news writer, my dream really came true.
Imagine my surprise when I learned my desk in the WCBS newsroom was just a few dozen steps from the show Peach and I loved. Guiding Light's backstage in the CBS Broadcast Center was right down the hall.
I can hear Peach marvelling, "What now?!"
Coming to Substack This Week
While writing this chapter, I introduced you to my sisters, Peach and Eva. In this week's Substack essay, I'll share some light-hearted memories that didn't make it into Chapter One.
Plus, forget the wine and cheese, I'll share more about the teen who traveled all the way to France, only to call home to discuss a soap opera with his mother. More about my obsession with Guiding Light while travelling on a high school trip.
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Next Time: Chapter 2
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