I always maintained that my DS thing started with all the very public TV funerals our generation was subjected to at tender ages. I was 6 when JFK got shot, 10-11 when MLK and RFK went. I developed a semi-morbid, semi-sincere interest in obsequies, cemeteries, history, and ghosts that, while I no longer believe in the latter, I still find entertaining or intriguing or moving, depending on the situation at hand.
I was already aware that the program existed--- I do remember the preview announcements, though I was but a tender young cookie pushing age 9. However, this was 3 years before we got a bigger antenna and new TV, which could pick up the NYC ABC signal better than what we had (our local affiliate never showed it, though they showed the other ABC soaps of the time, AMC, GH, and OLTL.) In any case, DS didn't move into the 4:00 PM time slot for, what? A couple of years anyway.
I DID have one friend, though, who raved on once the Barnabas thing got going. She had me over a couple of afternoons during the 1795 storyline. She tried to explain about Barnbas and how he hated Angelique, but I had the foggy notion that they were the PARENTS of the little girl on the episode ("Sarah", I know now.) But just one look, as the song says, and I was hooked.
However, it was another 6 or so months before my parents finally got the coveted TV and antenna, around the start of the Quentin storyline. Vicki was long gone, and the other 1795 people I vaguely remembered. I caught up by buying "16" magazines (which I still have), but their synopses depended, at that time, upon the spotty memories of fans who contributed. Still, it was good for a start.
I loved all of it, even the Leviathan story so many complain about, if only because I was as tired of seeing the actors in the same Victorian clothes every day, as the actors themselves were, probably, of wearing them. I wanted to look cool as Marie Wallace in her slinky pantsuit and belt when I grew up. (Alas, didn't turn out that way. I'm generally about as cool, fashion-wise, as Mrs. Johnson.)
I even signed the petitions to keep it on the air, though, in a way, I was relieved, because in high school we had a split schedule, and, thanks to there being not even Beta-maxes at the time, I would have missed it anyway in my freshman year. I wasn't involved in after-school stuff at all (like 6 hours a day wasn't ENOUGH time to spend in that place, plus I loathed sports) so I guess if the show had continued, and I was on the day schedule, I suppose, would still have kept up as much as possible, for a few more years, anyway.
There are certain stand-out scenes that I carried in my head for all those desert years that DS was, seemingly, gone forever. Then it came back during the time I was pregnanat and a while after Son was born, so it cheered me up a bit. Then it was gone AGAIN... Then it was back and I saw all I had missed, a couple of times... And now I know other fans, something else that I had missed, because the few local fans that I knew had all moved and we'd lost touch.
And with the Internet, it seems "there will always be someone" out there "with the same button on" as me, like the folksinger Melanie wrote....
L