The End of All My Children

When I was little, my Gramma Latimer watched stories all afternoon.  I'd sit with her and she'd tell me the storylines of each soap opera.  I didn't watch all of them regularly until college.
It was in college that we'd gather in the common area of our dorm to watch All My Children.  It was such a don't miss appointment that we'd schedule classes around it.  Long before VCRs and DVRs and Soapnet, I lost track of the show when I started working.  Strangely, companies frown upon employees watching TV during lunch breaks. 
I picked up the soap again when I started working from home.  Before the girls, I spent the day by myself working at a computer.  All My Children was entertaining and mindless background noise. 
This week All My Children ends.  It's sad because it's like my last connection with Gramma is gone.  It's time, though, for soap operas to fade to black.  Real life is so much crazier than anything they could get away with on network TV.  Times change. TV tastes change.  My memories of sitting in Gram's living room eating shortbread and watching "stories" stay, whether All My Children is on or not.