Two Brief Poems with a (Fairly) Brief Footnote

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Men seldom make passes

At girls who wear glasses.

                           --Dorothy Parker, 1926

The Young and the Restless

Soaps sell when girls flirt

With guys without shirts.

                        --Thomas Dorsett, 2021

After I wrote this little poem, I thought to myself: do soap operas still exist? Everybody streams entertainment these days; the days of a handful of channels, predominately CBC, NBC and ABC, are long gone. When I grew up back in the 50s, we only had five channels!

Memories came back to me. I remember walking to a friend's house on a school day for lunch; it was too far to walk from P.S. 28--a school which has been gone for decades--to my home at 163 Congress St. in Jersey City. 

On that day in 1956, I had lunch at  the house of Mrs. Gruber, my friend's grandmother. She made us French toast, but she paid us no mind. She was too busy watching As The World Turns on her 13-inch TV.

Soap operas were big in those days; my grandmother hardly ever missed an episode of the several soaps she followed. (I remember when  General Hospital began in 1963; it is one of the four still going.)

Every episode featured at least one hulk, who often appeared naked to the waist. Where are those hulks from the 50s and 60s today? If still alive, they probably have long since withered and grayed into pot-bellied has-beens. Où sont les neiges d'antan?

After lunch, I remember listening with my friend to pop music on 45 rpm vinyl records, the tinny sounds of which emanated from a tiny speaker on her little blue portable record player. It only played 45 rpm records; it had a big spindle in the middle to accommodate the records' larger central hole. I remember being jealous of my friend for possessing such a luxurious apparatus.

When I think of soap operas today, I think of the ubiquitous Spanish-language telenovelas. l listen to Spanish-language news daily, where they are frequently advertised during commercial breaks. The language is different, but the plots are the same.

I was pleased to discover that English-language soap operas still exist! My poem wasn't a posted pterodactyls after all.

The popularity of soap operas has significantly decreased from their heyday in the 50s and 60s. The internet informs me that their days are numbered. That's about all I have in common with soaps these days--My days are numbered, too.