Remember When Sean D. Wore a Tutu?

My mother watched "The Edge of Night." I don't remember too much about it, frankly, other than she used to iron while watching it. I'd play on the floor with my Lite-Brite and listen with one ear to whatever was going on. Not much, apparently, since it got cancelled at some point.

She was also big into "All My Children" or, as we called it in college, "All My Kids." I remember the very old days, when Tad was very, very young and Palmer could still ambulate. And there was Erica. Erica Kane. Who had a sister named Silver who had an affair with Erica's husband, if I remember correctly. I named a stuffed flamingo I got for a birthday gift in her honor. Man, if you're willing to cross Erica like that, you deserve your name in lights, not just tacked onto a stuffed flamingo.

I watched that one, on and off, for years. All through Cord and Tina. And Tina and Todd. With the old Tina and the new Tina. Good stuff. Wasn't the dad from "The Nanny" in that, too? Or was that "Guiding Light"? I can't remember.

I did the whole "GH" thing, too, as a kid. I remember going home from the pool in the middle of summer just to watch Luke and Laura get married. Because marriage between a rapist and his victim is...viable? Whatever. And then that whole deal with the Ice Princess and whatnot. And poor, poor Robin and her AIDS diagnosis. I see she's on some nighttime show on the Soap Channel. Is she still sick? Or is she the Magic Johnson of Port Charles?

But the big one? The granddaddy of them all? "Days of Our Lives". Without a doubt, the longstanding favorite during college. So much so that we would schedule classes around it. And when that didn't work? We'd tape it and sit around and watch after dinner and before cracking that history of Mary Chestnut we had to finish.

When I was in college, Sean D fell in a well and went deaf. Hope was gone and Bo first hooked up with Carly, who was helping Sean D to regain his hearing. Then he began hooking up with Billie after Carly got locked in a coffin by someone. Billie's hot, hot brother, Austin, was going to marry Carrie, the wonderful, sainted sister of that bitch, Sammie. And they were both daughters. Of the best, most ridiculous, most awesome couple ever.

John and Marlena. Of course, Marlena thought John was Roman, her husband. But Roman was dead and John took his place. But Roman wasn't really dead and came back. And so Marlena had two Romans to choose from. Who looked, talked and acted absolutely nothing alike so I was never quite certain exactly how it was that Marlena could have believed John was Roman but, whatever. Turns out, John was a priest, too, which made all the sex-having with Marlena a bit problematic.

I think Marlena ended up throwing Roman over for John, even though her story line with Roman was supposed to be the storyline to end all storylines back in the day. Roman looked a lot older than Marlena by the time he came back in the 90's, you know, and soaps aren't so kind on wrinkles.

John also performed an exorcism on Marlena. Which was all kinds of awesome.

Anyway, it appears that they're both getting the ax. The show can't justify their salaries or some such malarky, so they're leaving. Or being asked to leave. Or showed up and found his priest collar and her silk dressing gown on the cold cement streets outside the studio.

This is pretty sad for a show that, for all appearances, really did try to keep people on for long times. That's what makes soap operas so...well, I can't say good. But relatable. They aren't lying when they say you can walk away for two years, come back and be in the story lines within a week. That's because the characters are constant, the family connections are constant, the scenary is constant and very little changes. Even with all the action swirling around the youngsters on the programs, there were still shots of the old Brady clan every once in a while, particularly around the holiday shows. The fact that they're getting rid of John and Marlena is pretty sad, in its way.

I thought soap opera actors just slowly faded away, like old soldiers. Instead, their jobs are getting outsourced. But there will never be a couple like John and Marlena.

Except for Marlena and Roman. No, not that Roman. The other one.