Marland Monday: Summertime!
Howdy, everyone! Happy Juneteenth! And it’s Monday, so that means it’s…
Marland Monday!
Yes, let’s look back at Douglas Marland, a writer whose career was focused on writing the soap opera genre. Let’s get to it, shall we?
Tomorrow is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. I loved summer when I was a kid. Summer was so many things: freedom first. I was free from school, worrying about not being able to write correctly or do math. When I was younger I’d go to summer school. It wasn’t really summer school; it was “hey let’s keep your children entertained for the morning” summer school. It would run for six weeks but then in August, I could sleep in until school started again. Summer was freedom from bullies. It was watching classic movies a Sacramento station broadcast during the summer every night, movies like The Clock, Casablanca, and Sabrina. It meant reading late at night. But it was the time to catch up on soaps.
When I was younger my family didn’t have a VCR. We finally got one in 1984 when I was twelve. At fourteen I kind of broke the VCR because of my constant watching of Beth and Lujack clips when they were on Guiding Light, and clips from As The World Turns. The former spoke to the romantic in me. The latter spoke to the writer in me. Even when we bought another VCR (and I had to promise my mother I wouldn’t watch shows all the time) For two academic years, I didn’t have time to watch soaps-I had journalism at 7:15 in the mornings, then I worked fifteen hours at the local library. That’s a fifty-hour week. I was incredibly overambitious. So summer was my time to decompress, and watch soaps when I wasn’t working.
Marland was smart; he always had had great stories during the summertime. Let’s pull up the wading pool, put on the air conditioning, and remember, shall we?
Laurel Falls, 1980–1981
Morgan (Kristen Vigard) was the new girl in town. She needed help with school; because of a car accident that killed her father, she was behind. Enter Kelly Nelson (John Wesley Shipp) a medical student who was hired to tutor Morgan. They bickered constantly, but you knew these crazy kids were going to fall in love. Many scenes were done at Laurel Falls. I was always bummed there wasn’t a fall in my town. Okay, I was near the ocean but it wasn’t the same! Kelly wasn’t around wearing his Speedos at our beaches!
“Well, Why Don’t You Go To Her, Then?” 1981
I’ve written about the tricks Nola played to get Kelly last year, and how on July 27 1981 it finally reached a peak. Now I am glad I wrote it when Lisa Brown was alive. There’s so much I love about it, and the August wedding as well. For years I truly thought weddings could be put together at the last minute, a high school choir would drop everything and sing “You Needed Me” during a wedding, and almost the whole town would show up for the wedding. Those were the days.
Carrie And Her Alters, 1982
This one is going to get a series of essays in August. Why? Well, you’ll have to read it in August! I will tell you that Jane Elliot should’ve been nominated for an Emmy for playing Carrie Todd Marler and her alters: Carrie Two was manipulative and slept with anyone she could. Carrie Three was a scared naive girl who was frightened of the world. In the summer of 1982, they all made their mark on Springfield, and it should’ve gone on throughout the fall. It didn’t though.
The Snyder Pond 1986–1994?
The Snyder Pond was located on the Snyder farm homestead. If a Snyder was courting someone, odds are they’ll take their beloved to the pond. Clothes would be shed, and almost always they’d have their bathing suits under their clothes. Or maybe not (no nudity was shown; this was network TV) The show filmed the pond scenes in Connecticut, and you can see a picture of Mr. Marland and several stars on location here.
Requiescat In Power, Christopher Hughes 1986
In late May 1986, Don MacLaughlin who played Chris Hughes for thirty years died. It wasn’t a surprise; his appearances on the show had been sporadic. In July 1986, Kim (Kathryn Hays) and Lisa (Eileen Fulton) came in from a summer storm after shopping. Bob (Don Hastings) was home, looking sad. He told them Chris had died. It wasn’t long before people started coming to the house. John Dixon made Chris’ death about, well, him. The Snyders brought food over. My favorite part was when Barbara (Colleen Zenk) was comforting Andy (Scott DeFreitas) telling him “Andy it’s okay to cry.”
He looked at her and said, “We didn’t finish the last chess game.”
Oh, my heart.
Kim and Bob talked and decided that if the baby they were expecting was a boy, he would be named Chris. A month later, Kim did give birth to a baby boy named Christopher Hughes.
I know there were other summers, other storylines, but I’m blanking on them now. If you remember, let me know on Twitter. My user name is @jenniferkate. Also FYI: am taking next week off, and will be back 4th of July.
In the meantime, here’s a poem by Geraldine Connelly for the summer:
The Summer I Was Sixteen
The turquoise pool rose up to meet us,
its slide a silver afterthought down which
we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.
We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.
Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted
up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool
lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,
we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete,
danced to the low beat of “Duke of Earl”.
Past cherry colas, hot dogs, Dreamsicles,
we came to the counter where bees staggered
into root beer cups and drowned. We gobbled
cotton candy torches, sweet as furtive kisses,
shared on benches beneath summer shadows.
Cherry. Elm. Sycamore. We spread our chenille
blankets across grass pressed radios to our ears,
mouthing the old words, then loosened
thin bikini straps and rubbed baby oil with iodine
across sunburned shoulders, tossing a glance
through the chain-link at an improbable world.
See you in two weeks…
