Guiding Light Coming to an End after 72 Years

I don't know folks...when I heard the news today I thought it was a reporter's idea of a bad April Fools joke.

I have watched this soap opera ever since I was a kid. I STILL watch it and have even met a couple by overhearing conversations about GL characters at a local restaurant! Heck, we even stay in touch. I'm sure they are in mourning over the news.

I've seen them come, and I've seem them go...but as my Ode to Guiding Light, here are a few of my favorite and not so favorite plotlines and characters:

Reva Shayne: GL's aging "good ole gal" that has married every Lewis brother as well as the father on the show.

"Forever Bud and Reva" (GAG)

My Favorite Not so Favorite Line of Reva's : "Forever Bud" This is the guy that she is supposedly soul mates with, but she marries everyone else in town. I nearly tossed my cookies when I first heard her call her soul mate "Bud" when his real name is Josh. go figure.

Ross Marler, Rick Bauer, Ed Bauer

Alan Spaulding: GL's evil CEO executive that grooms all his children and slaps his last name on their birth certificate and then they are the protege of his business empire. It's almost like watching Children of the Corn trying to be corporate ladder climbers in the business world.

My Favorite Line of Alan's (while speaking to Reva): "You amuse me with your Daisy Duke, beer drinking, hillbilly ways".

Phillip/Beth: Phillip Spaulding, Alan's son who is really Justin Marler's son is soul mates with the virginal Beth. They go through all types of trials and tribulations, even Beth becoming blind and her doing a really bad Helen Keller-ish impersonation of a sightless person.

LuJack/Beth: Another Spaulding that doesn't find out until much later as he is Alexandra Spaulding's son and he somehow didn't grow up with his family and became a gang leader. He meets Beth, falls in love and begins a music career. He leaves his old girlfriend behind, Darcy and she continues the gang.

Favorite Not so favorite line of Phillip's to LuJack about Darcy: "What do you feed it to keep it so ugly?"

Sheesh...so many characters and only one blog. There were the Reardons: Jim, Tony, Annabelle, Nola and her husband Quentin. The psychic island adventures Jim and Annabelle had...then there was Claire and Fletcher who were coupled together in the same vein as Lucy and Ricky. Then there is Josh Lewis, Billy Lewis, H.B. Lewis, Hawk Shayne, Shayne Lewis, Vanessa, Matt, Buzz, Lizzie Spaulding, Henry Chamberlain, Roger Thorpe the ultimate villain, Ross Marler, and so so so many more.

The Ultimate Villain - Roger Thorpe

May your disfunctional, "family obsessed" community forever live on in our hearts of Springfield.

More Musings Later-