Donna Says...

Expecting

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 05:41:00 +0000

When is Christmas over? Is it when the last present is unwrapped? The last relative has gone home? The last Christmas candy has been eaten? Maybe when the ball drops in Times Square?

I know Christmas is over when I stop expecting something new.

During the weeks before Christmas I enjoy lots of fun little surprises. I'm often surprised by an old carol I'd forgotten and childhood memories come flooding back. Relatives surprise me with quick calls to double check someone's size or compare travel plans and recipes. This year we were surprised to spend Christmas Day at the home of my daughter and son-in-law instead of having them come to our place because they'd been sick and weren't up to driving over. We packed up Christmas dinner and took it to them and had a great time opening presents and playing with their cats.

Somehow, no matter how much planning goes into the season it’s never quite what you expected.

Today we said goodbye to another soap opera as One Life To Live aired its last original episode on ABC. For close to twenty-five years I've tuned in to life in Llanview expecting to see a new story unfold every Monday through Friday. Sometimes I predicted the way a story might play out, guessing which good guy was really the bad guy, which DNA test wasn't necessarily conclusive or which character might be recast next. More than once I've seen good writers fix a bad story and brilliant actors shine when handed a less than brilliant script.

But I always saw something new. No repeats, except for an occasional holiday re-run.

Next Monday there will be nothing new in Llanview. And I'm still grieving the loss of All My Children. More than just entertainment, these shows have been a gathering place for families and friends from one generation to the next for as long as I can remember. Even when characters and stories changed, we could tune into Llanview or Pine Valley and find something familiar and remember the foundational stories that we loved so much as we watched new stories develop. I could always pick up a novel or go see a movie but the never ending story format of soap operas is something unique.

The sense of expectation is what I will miss on Monday when the time comes and there's no One Life To Live to watch. I felt that loss when All My Children went off the air but at the time we thought we'd be seeing it online so I could tell myself it wasn't really goodbye and I took comfort in the last few months of life in Llanview. I am very grateful for Frank Vallentini and Ron Carlivati and all the cast and crew of OLTL who brought this wonderful show to a very satisfying close. The last two shows in particular were brilliantly written and brought me to tears several times. Special thanks go to The View for their Tribute to One Life to Live show for packing so many memories into an hour that flew by, also accompanied by tears.

It's not just the anticipation of what my favorite characters will do next that I'll miss, though, it's sharing that with other viewers. Year by year new friends have become dear friends as we've talked about our favorite stories in person and online. This week plans are underway for the next fan luncheon for Jessica Leccia in New York City and I've been thinking of people I might see there if I'm able to attend. Some I've never met, some I met only briefly at last year's luncheon, but dear friends I chat with every day.

While bracing myself for this last week of OLTL I thought of how Guiding Light led the way for us. As GL was going off the air, many of the actors, writers & crew members made themselves available to the fans on Twitter and Facebook. We saw life go on for them as they shared their new dreams with us and allowed us to encourage and support them. In many cases new and life-changing friendships formed and once again I was caught by surprise. Somehow we felt like we didn't have to really let them go as we followed them to new shows and projects. I’m glad so many from AMC & OLTL are staying in touch with us the same way now.

I’m sure I’ll see some of my favorite actors from OLTL go on to other TV shows or movies. Some may be seen on stage in towns all around the country or even on Broadway. Some may be signing their latest book at my local bookstore.

I certainly expect to watch some of them in webseries like my favorite new soap, Venice. These are the ones reinventing the entertainment industry and interacting with the audience in new and different ways. Emmy-winning Venice is in its third season now and when new episodes are released every Wednesday I gather with other viewers to talk about the latest developments just like I have with other soaps I’ve watched for years.

I expect new stories will be shared online as long as there is an audience to watch them.

I know I’ll be staying tuned to see what they do next.

I hope you'll leave a comment and tell me about your favorite new webseries. Feel free to share your memories of OLTL or thoughts on the this week's shows.

Her

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:07:00 +0000

I told myself

"I will never be like

her."

Out of step

Out of touch

Out of her mind.

Why does she major

on the minors?

Why so many words

that say nothing?

How did she get this way?

Was she always so miserable?

Has she

ever

been

happy?

Can't get her to stop & listen

Can't get her to see what I see

Can't get away fast enough.

My life

My rules

My

mistakes

that haunt me

and won't go away.

In the morning when I wake up

they're there.

In the night when sleep won't come

they're there.

In the moments in between

when I think I've beat them back

they're there.

And again
I hear her voice

"There, there..."

Jeannine

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:06:00 +0000

Yesterday, December 1st, was the second anniversary of the death of my mother-in-law, Jeannine Cook Pool. You'll hear no mother-in-law jokes from me. She was an amazing force of nature and I was privileged to know her.

I had been introduced to her, briefly, at church on a Sunday morning, but I recall really meeting her when I gave my husband-to-be a ride home from our college campus one evening. I didn't know he was my husband-to-be at the time, we were just friends who had met through the Baptist Student Union at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas (now called Texas State University). But it seemed Tinkerbelle knew something was up.

Tinkerbelle was a little dachshund-terrier mix who, unbeknownst to me, was usually wary of strangers. But when we stepped into the house Tinkerbelle ran right up to me, flipped over on her back and eagerly waited for me to reach down and rub her tummy, which I was delighted to do. As I was getting acquainted with Tinkerbelle I noticed Dub, his younger sister and their parents standing around us with their mouths hanging open for a few seconds of shocked silence before they all began to explain that Tinkerbelle just doesn't take to strangers. They looked at me like I'd suddenly sprouted a halo and looked at Dub as though saying silently, "Where did you find this girl?!

I should have asked Tinkerbelle, "What do you know that I don't know?!"

That was the first time I recall being on the receiving end of a Jeannine Pool hug and I don't think I have the words to tell you how much pure love and acceptance came with one of those hugs. She made me feel like family even then.

When I was sick, holed up in my little college apartment with a fever, she made me her homemade chicken soup. When I was stressing out about planning wedding details she told me that her job as mother of the groom was to wear beige and keep her mouth shut and that made me laugh and broke the tension. She also told me that the rehearsal dinner was the only thing she got to plan and she looked me square in the eye and said, "You're going to be comfortable. Everybody's wearing jeans. We're having a western barbecue dinner!" And I loved her all the more. I bought myself a new cowboy hat to wear to it, borrowed my roommate's Justin boots and Dub and I wore matching armadillo belt buckles. I was comfortable and everybody had a great time.

When Dub's father passed away we were there for her and she taught us about dealing gracefully with loss and adjusting to life's unexpected changes.

When we could afford next to nothing for Christmas, she lavished gifts on our little girls and made sure they had all they needed.

When we sought an escape from our stressful routine she welcomed us for long weekends at her beautiful home in the Texas Hill Country where we could put our feet up and watch the deer and the birds in her yard and wave to the golfers playing on the 6th fairway while our girls played dress-up in her closet.

She got her breast cancer diagnosis when we were visiting one weekend. I'm glad we were there. When she went for her first visit with the oncologist to discuss her radiation treatments, I went with her. Thankfully, they had caught it early and a few weeks of radiation took care of it.

She was as close as a phone call and I miss dialing her number and hearing her say, "Pool's residence, this is Mrs. Pool" and replying, "This is the other Mrs. Pool!" and hearing the delight in her voice as we caught up on all the news of the family.

She poured her love into her son and daughter and her granddaughters and I see her in each of them whenever we're together. She comforted us and challenged us and sometimes exasperated us.

She left us a lot to live up to.

I hope we make her proud.

Static

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:33:00 +0000

On the occasion of the last taping of One Life To Live on ABC I feel that I should share some profound words of wisdom.

I've got nothing.

For many of us the memories go back for decades as we grew up with the characters who have populated Llanview and those who were just passing through. I can't see one of these former Llanview residents pop up on primetime shows or in movies without saying, "Hey, he used to be on "One Life To Live!"

I've been missing All My Children for months since it left the airwaves and soon it will be time to face the sad fact that One Life To Live will no longer be found on ABC. I still have hope that both shows will eventually be resurrected on the web. This is as revolutionary as when soap operas moved from radio to television. It's a new world and we're all reinventing it every day.

Feeling nostalgic about my favorite soaps and considering the changing landscape of the entertainment industry, I know it's not just the shows themselves that I miss. It's the community. Today I spend time on Twitter and Facebook and talk about my favorite shows with literally thousands of fans from all over the world on a daily basis. Some would say "Now, there's a community!" With hundreds of channels to choose from you can usually find someone else who is watching that show you love and one of them has probably set up their own message board for it.

When I was a child in the '60's, I'd turn on my television set, peek at the back of it to see the tubes start to glow as it warmed up, wiggle the rabbit ears about till I found the perfect spot and the snow on the screen cleared up, adjusted the contrast to receive all the colors from white to grey to black, and then turned the dial to one of the three networks (okay, we could pull in a couple of independent stations, too) and finally settle in to watch my favorite show. With so few choices there was a good chance most of my friends were watching the same thing at that very moment. No one had heard of VCRs yet.

I tell myself it was a simpler time when the world moved at a slower pace and shows stayed on the air for years and years and became old friends. But the reality is the '60s were anything but slow as the world was changing radically at breakneck speed. For every memory of Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo there were also images of Peter Jennings and Dan Rather reporting on the Vietnam war. And while there were shows that lasted like Gunsmoke and Bonanza we also gratefully bid adieu to My Mother the Car and It's About Time.

The only constant is change.

Sometimes unexpected

Sometimes met with a sense of relief

Often fought tooth and nail

Change is inevitable.

We can't tune out the static yet and get a clear picture of the future for All My Children and One Life To Live but I think there are a few things we can say for sure.

1. No matter what happens, fans will complain.

2. Our favorite soaps will be replaced on the networks by other shows, much cheaper to produce, that will be little noted nor long remembered.

3. Prospect Park sees value in these shows and is willing to try to find a new format, a new platform to keep telling their stories. It's not a sentimental sacrifice on their part, they're hoping it will pay off. I'm glad they recognize that these shows do still have an audience and they apparently believe the audience will still be there once they've worked out the kinks. I think they're right and I wish them all the luck in the world for the sake of the fans and all who have played a part in bringing these shows to us for so long.

4. No matter where they go or what other projects they will do in the future, the fans will always support anyone who has worked on soaps. Members of the Guiding Light family who joined Twitter and Facebook as their show was going off the air know the connection formed with fans has provided much needed support for actors, crew members and fans during the transition to life after the show. This is yet another way that Guiding Light has blazed a trail for us and now All My Children and One Life to Live actors are connecting with the fans in this way, too.

So, to the cast and crew of One Life to Live, I say a heartfelt "Thank you" for all the stories through all the years, every laugh,every tear and every Friday cliffhanger.

I look forward to the future.

It won't look like today.

But people will always want stories.

There will always be someone who wants to tell them.

And someone will find a way to share them.

The Government

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 01:36:00 +0000

When I moved to Maryland it seemed to me that the people here had a very different attitude toward government than in my home state of Texas. In Texas the government was what you wanted to get off your back. In Maryland, the government was how so many people managed their space and their resources in this densely populated area of the country.

We’re hearing a lot in the news these days about the government. Some people want more, some people want less, some blame the government for everything.

The government isn't a group of buildings in Washington DC, a corporation, or a nameless, faceless entity out to get you.

The government IS you.

The government didn't spring into being overnight when someone waved a magic wand. It's there because We, the People, put it there.

Walk into any governmentt office anywhere and the people you see working are there because somebody voted for somebody who got elected and made a decision that put them there.

No one has more power to change the government than you do - than we do - because WE are the government. We decide how our country will be governed every time we vote in an election and between elections we can contact the people we voted into office and tell them what we want them to do and why. The choices they make may not always go the way we’d like but we have the right and the responsibility to be part of the process.

I hear a lot of people complaining about candidates, saying they don’t like any of them. They’re fed up with the government and they’re not going to bother voting this time.

If you do not exercise your right to vote then you are allowing other people to make important decisions for you. If you don't like the decisions they make, then you made the wrong decision when you gave that power to them.

Next time, exercise your right to vote. Work it. Do your research, don't just read the headlines or take someone's word for it. Read it for yourself, listen to a candidate's whole speech and not just the sound bites. Consider the source and don't rely on just one. Weigh the long term consequences of policies, not just the quick fixes because the future of our children is at stake.

Moms and Weddings, Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 02:58:00 +0000

She's married.

I'm a mother-in-law.

I have a son-in-law.

I also have a house full of leftover food, reception decorations, wedding gifts and a hard drive full of photos waiting to be edited and shared.

It happens so fast. And like Liza Minelli's song, when it all comes true just the way you planned, it's a quiet thing.* Her smile as an infant, a toddler and every age along the way flashed through my mind along with every wish I'd ever had for her. And they all came true in that moment.

I did not take pictures during the ceremony itself, did not even have my camera with me then since I'd promised my daughter I would simply be the Mother Of The Bride. At times I have to choose whether to be a participant or an observer when do I have my camera with me and I confess I slipped into observer mode for a while during the reception.

But as I looked around the room at my brother and sister, Aunt Becky, nieces, nephews, cousins and all my extended family gathered there, I had to save the moment.

The last time so many of us had been together was for my mother's memorial service and I wondered then how well we would stay in touch with each other since Mom had been our communications hub, relaying the news from one corner of the family to another. While weeks and months have passed between emails and phone calls and an occasional birthday gets missed, we do love and enjoy each other and have stayed in touch pretty well. My sister, aunt and sister-in-law hosted a delightful bridesmaid's luncheon for my daughter the day before the wedding, filled with laughter and hugs. Then they showed up the next day ready to pitch in and help make this DIY wedding everything Becky and Andy hoped it would be.

I love my family.

I told my sister that it was just as well that my mother wasn't around for this one, though. Mom liked to have all the details arranged well in advance whether she was planning a Sunday School lesson or a wedding. My daughter, Becky, is much more spontaneous. While some things had been prepared well in advance, other elements came together nicely the day before with assignments handed out to relatives and friends who were eager to help, as she knew they would be. That would have driven my mother batty!

But it gave us the opportunity to be participants

instead of just observers

To give something of ourselves to bring joy to Becky and Andy

who have given so much joy to us

To get to know each other

on all sides of this growing family

as we worked together to make memories that would last a lifetime.

*If you aren't familiar with the song, here's one of my favorite versions of it.

For Liz and Llanview

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 01:50:00 +0000

I confess that I didn't start watching Guiding Light until early in 2009, so I missed some of the best moments of Liz Keifer's portrayal or Blake Marler. But let me tell you what I did see and why I am a fan of her work now.

In every scene in which Liz Keifer appeared, I learned a little bit more about the character of Blake Marler. Even in scenes where she was just in the background there was always some little thing Liz did to show us something about Blake's personality. And what I saw made me want to know Blake better.

I had started watching GL because friends had told me about Otalia – the story of Olivia and Natalia. They said their relationship was building slowly the way the great soap romances always have. As I watched their love story unfold and saw Blake get more involved with the two of them, I was more and more impressed with Liz Keifer and what she could do with the slightest gesture or look. She delivered a line as though a great truth had only that moment dawned on Blake, opening up a whole new world to her, illuminating her face with a child-like sense of wonder.

When we first see Liz on Venice, Crystal Chappell's webseries, she doesn't say a word and she's only on screen for a few seconds. We don't know who she is or why she is hurting or even whether she is real or not. But you cannot look away. And you must find out who this woman is and what caused her pain and what will bring healing to her. Is she real or a ghost or a figment of Guya's imagination?

I've become a fan of Jerry verDorn, too, since he joined the cast of one of my favorite shows, One Life to Live. I knew that he and Liz sponsored an event called Daytime Stars and Strikes but I haven't been able to attend one of these yet. Last year I donated some auction items, though. This year I couldn't afford to donate anything so I rallied some of my Twitter friends to donate things instead. I contacted Wendy Madore, the organizer of the event and wrote a blogabout where to send donated items and Tweeted about it. Some of myCafePress items and things from the Venice Shop were donated to help raise money for the American Cancer Society. (You can see photos of this event here.)

As I followed the news that was Tweeted by friends of mine who attended the event I saw @Guiding_Light mention that she'd spoken with Jerry verDorn and he wants to encourage fans to write in and request that Liz be added to the cast of One Life to Live. I immediately thought of several possibilities of characters and stories she could play! She would be a great fit for Llanview and I know I'll be writing to let my voice be heard.

But I don't want them to hear from only me. I want them to hear from you, too. Just as I did for the donations to the Stars and Strikes auction, I'm spreading the word so others can get involved. Below you will find all the contact information you'll need to send your letters and postcards to ABC and to Prospect Park, the company taking OLTL online in January. Please share this information on Twitter, Facebook and anywhere else you like. Feel free to link to this blog , too, and I'll be sure to share any new information as it becomes available! (This information can also be found at http://elizabethkeifer-campaign.tumblr.com/howtogetinvolved .

Frank Valentini, Exec Producer, OLTL
ABC Daytime
320 West 66th Street
New York, NY 10023

Ron Carlivati HeadWriter, One Life to Live
ABC Daytime
77 West 66th Street
New York, NY 10023

Prospect Park Branch Office
2049 Century Park East #2550
Century City, California 90067
Attn: Mr. Paul Frank - Executive Head of TV

Call in to One Life To Live:
OLTL Direct Comment Lines: (NY) 212-456-3338 (NY) 212-456-7777 OR (LA) 818-460-7477

Tweet @prospectpk tell them you want to see Liz Kiefer (@eakcik) on One Life to Live.

My Life is a Soap Opera Blake Mug by donnapool
Browse Soap Mugs

Thank You, Steve

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 01:42:00 +0000

In 1984 my husband and I bought the original Macintosh computer. It was a huge investment for us at the time, about $2400, since my husband was in seminary and I was working full-time to help put him through school. But we felt like having the Macintosh would mean he'd spend less time typing and re-typing his papers (or learning word processing on an IBM PC and I could use it for graphics work, too.

We were right. Years later our daughter, Becky, would wrap her tiny fingers around the mouse of that Macintosh and make pictures with its graphics program. (She eventually graduated from college with a degree in Graphic Design and is now head of the Photo Department at LivingSocial.com.)

I'd say our investment paid off.

We did eventually grow frustrated with that Mac, though, and it's lack of a built in hard drive or second floppy drive. Its 128k of ram was twice what the IBM PC offered at the time but technology grew by leaps and bounds and passed us and our small budget by. We couldn't keep up with the upgrades and new models that came each year so we kept ours just as it came from the factory.

Decades later, when we finally admitted we would never again actually use the old Macintosh and we needed the space in our tiny basement, we sold it on eBay. The one thing potential buyers wanted to know about it was whether or not we had the original Styrofoam boxes everything came in with the original cardboard sleeves on them, emblazoned with the Apple logo. We did. Everything had been packed away in the original boxes, with the original software and manuals, never upgraded. The Macintosh & Imagewriter printer were in good working order, just the way we got them. The buyer drove to Maryland from New Jersey and paid us several hundred dollars in cash for his treasured vintage Macinstosh.

We dropped out of the world of Apple for decades, unable to keep up with the high cost of the products, no matter how wonderful they were. Not everybody can afford first class. Then my daughter received an ipod mini as a gift and we gave an ipod touch to my husband for his birthday. I bought myself an ipod classic for my 50^th birthday with money from my family. And when Becky started her university art classes she got a Mac with her student loan money. Now, she has an iphone.

But Steve Jobs gave us much more than good products.

He gave us ideas.

The idea that you can make your dreams come true even if you start with nothing.

The idea that you can pick yourself up and start over when you fail and have been rejected.

The idea that there is always a new dream to pursue.

The idea that every day counts.

The idea that you can change the world.

Thank you, Steve. We will miss you.

Ups And Downs

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:48:00 +0000

If you need a car and have a few thousand dollars you can buy a car. But if you don't have a few thousand dollars it will cost you a few thousand more to buy the same car. You will buy it on credit and pay for the privilege of buying it a little at a time rather than paying in a single lump sum. So the poorer person will pay much more for the same car than a rich person will.

If you have health insurance you'll pay a certain amount out of pocket when you go to the doctor. If you don't have health insurance you'll have to pay a great deal more out of pocket when you go to the doctor. Which makes it less likely that you'll ever be able to afford the high cost of insurance premiums. Which means you'll continue to pay a great deal more for every medical expense.

It's expensive to be poor in this country.

I majored in History, not Finance. I don't know a lot about how financial institutions work. But I have learned a few lessons from the history of our country.

When the gap between the rich and the poor grows to record proportions

we all lose.

When the people at the top forget that they need the people at the bottom

we all lose.

When the people in the middle are more likely to end up on the bottom than on the top

we all lose.

We need each other.

Rich or poor, we need each other.

That's the lasting Truth I saw rise to the top as I watched all the documentaries about 9/11 earlier this month.

We need to invest in each other because we are stronger when we work together.

I hope these are issues we consider the next time we cast our votes.

I know this isn't like most of my blog articles. But these things have been echoing in my mind for a while now so I thought I'd share them.

Write for Eden

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 02:54:00 +0000

If you're a fan of Eden Riegel's, like I am, you probably have a thing or two you'd like to say to the powers that be at The Young and the Restless about the fact that they are letting a talented, Emmy winning actress go and/or about the way this news was delivered to her today, via Twitter, before she finally received official notice.

Tell them you hope they'll keep Eden on the show, even on a recurring basis. The rest of the message is up to you.

While you're at it, drop a line to the soap magazines and share your thoughts with them, too.

I'd like to make sure you know who should receive those comments so I'm posting address for snail mail and email here:

The Young and the Restless

CBS Television City
Attention: put name here
7800 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Co-Executive Producers: Maria Arena Bell

Head Writer: Maria Arena Bell

Co-Head Writers: Hogan Sheffer, Scott Hamner

Soap Publications

spwpubop@sourceinterlink.com

Soap Opera Weekly
Public Opinion

4 New York Plaza
New York, NY 10004

cbsspeakout@soapsindepth.com,

Speak Out

c/o Soaps In Depth

270 Sylvan Ave.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632

sodsound@sourceinterlink.com

Soap Opera Digest
SOD Sound Off

4 New York Plaza
New York, NY 10004

My 9/11

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:44:00 +0000

I had just dropped my daughter off at school, then drove to a nearby store to pick up a couple of things. On the way home I turned on my car radio and heard the news about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. They were speculating that it must have been a small private plane of some kind.

When I got home I turned on the TV and saw the second plane hit the south tower. I was watching NBC so it was Katie Couric and Matt Lauer & Al Roker who were starting to speculate that it might have been a terrorist attack.

I called my husband, who was in his office at the church where he worked in Annapolis, and told him what had happened. They brought a TV into the office and turned it on to try to bring in one of the local channels. The TVs there were used for showing videos to classes only so there was no antenna or cable connection. After a few minutes of barely getting a signal they were using a wire as an improvised antenna and watching the news there.

I called one of my friends whose son was in my daughter's class. We were both at home, alone, trying to make sense of it and we stayed on the phone for quite a while, just taking a little comfort in the sound of a familiar voice. Some parents were bringing their kids home from school but I decided letting my daughter's day continue as normally as possible would be best until I knew there was a reason to pick her up.

After the plane flew into the Pentagon my husband came home and together we watched the news. We learned later that the father of one of our daughter's friends worked at the Pentagon. His office was in the section that was hit but he was out of the office that day.

My life was not directly affected, though. I wasn't there in New York or DC. But DC is just a half hour west of us. Our house is in the flight path of BWI airport so the sound of planes overhead was common. Suddenly there were no airliners in the skies at all. But we did see fighter planes turning overhead as they patrolled the skies over DC. Midshipmen in their uniforms had been a common sight around downtown Annapolis but now they were restricted to the Yard (campus). While we had always been able to drive through the Naval Academy no vehicles were allowed anymore unless they had a Department of Defense sticker, a rule that persists to this day. The main entrance to the Academy was changed to allow for tighter security checks.

I remember the first time I saw a passenger jet overhead once they'd been cleared to fly again. I heard it first, then stopped in my tracks and watched until it was out of sight. My heart was heavy for those who had died because an enemy had used those as weapons.

Much has been said and written about 9/11 and I don't think I can add anything to the narrative. When these anniversaries roll around we can't help but turn our attention to those events, though, still trying to make sense of it all, to find some lesson that will last.

I keep thinking of all the people who started that day like any other, getting dressed and going to work as usual. Many found strength and compassion beyond their wildest imagination before the day was done. Lives were lost that day, but many lives were also saved. By ordinary people who started their day like any other. Police officers, Firefighters, or just the guy who worked in the next office.

We need each other.

People may argue about the details of history and the political and diplomatic response to the events of 9/11 or the lasting cultural impact but one thought rises to the top for me whenever I turn my attention to that day.

We need each other.

Life is precious. Each and every one. And we need each other.

I hope we think of that as the news media grows tired of this topic and returns to reporting on the race for the presidency as if it were a sporting event. Which party is winning, which politician is losing this week and what will it all come down to on election day? How you cast your vote determines how the government functions at all levels from the White House down to your neighborhood.

We need each other.

To work together

To look after each other

To make life better for everyone.

Because life is precious.

Each and every one.

Moms and Weddings, Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 02:25:00 +0000

When I was planning my wedding I lived 4 hours away from my mom. This proved to be a good thing. I recall several conversations that went something like this:

Mom: Have you chosen your flowers and talked to a florist yet?

Me: Not yet, Mom.

Mom: Well, what about your colors, have you picked your colors?

Me: No, Mom, I've been a little busy here.

Mom: Have you even registered your china?

Me: No, Mom, I'm trying to pass my Soviet Foreign Policy class at the moment.

Mom: Well, people are going to start asking and you really have to –

Me: Mom, all I really have to do is show up with Dub and the preacher and the rest is gravy!

While I was busy trying to finish my last three semesters of college and graduate, my mom made my wedding dress. I remember showing her a picture in a Bride's magazine and saying “I want something like this.” She held up a couple of pattern pieces to me to check the size one weekend when I came home and the next time I came home it was finished. It fit perfectly and was exactly what I wanted. She made my going away outfit, too.

My mother and my sister also took care of all our flowers, buying silk flowers and supplies at Michael's and making all boutonnieres for the men and the bouquets for the bridesmaids, too. My bouquet was also made of silk flowers but we had a local florist put that one together.

I hear DIY weddings are all the rage these days. We just did it that way because it was cheaper.

Now my daughter and her fiance are working on their own DIY wedding. Hardly a day goes by without some discussion of wedding plans with someone in my family. And each new discussion reminds me of my mother and I miss her all over again, wishing she were here to help. She'd make sure no detail was forgotten, no checklist left unchecked and she would have had the time of her life doing it all.

My daughter lives about an hour away and I see and talk with her frequently. I often catch myself wishing I could do more to help with her wedding plans, although I know she wouldn't want me to feel that way. I'm usually the geek in the back of the room running the audio equipment at special events or the photographer documenting it all, not the one you'd want to consult about wedding planning details, anyway, so it's just as well.

I feel like all I can do for my daughter is to stand on the sidelines and cheer her on, which is probably the best thing I can do for her, all things considered. Well, that and try to find something to wear to this shindig that looks more like the mother of the bride than my jeans and Chucks.

Mt. Lebanon: A Picture of Love

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 21:47:00 +0000

I took a picture 32 years ago of a little girl sitting on her daddy's lap. It wasn't posed, it was just something I noticed happening. They knew I was there with my camera but they were paying attention to each other, not to me. And in that moment, I tried to capture an image of their love for each other.

Last week I found out it worked.....

It's summertime so I've been thinking about Mt. Lebanon lately. That's a Baptist camp south of Dallas where I worked every summer during my college years. It's also where I took that picture 32 years ago. Most recreation staffers for the Dallas Baptist Association youth and preteen camps worked only one or two summers. I think I may have set a record with my five. Now I can't help but think of Mt Lebanon when schools let out for summer and the temperatures rise above 90 degrees.

I've posted a few Mt. Lebanon photos on Facebook and some of the kids I met there all those years ago have found me there. I am honored that they remember me and surprised at all the stories that come tumbling out of us as we talk about our time there.

This past week I took the time to tag some of my Mt. Lebanon photos with the names of some people I've found on Facebook and that started a conversation with Gary and Valleta Lanier and their daughter, Leah. Gary was my youth minister at the First Baptist Church of Oak Cliff in Dallas when I was a teenager. Valleta was my Sunday School teacher and friend and Leah was a cute little kid who loved running around with all of us teenagers, frequently getting passed from lap to lap at all of our parties and retreats. We were delighted to find each other and started sharing memories of Mt. Lebanon where Gary had frequently served as Music Director, bringing Valleta and Leah along with him.

While we were chatting I posted the photo of that little girl sitting on her daddy's lap. Here it is, along with some of the Lanier family's comments:

Leah: Awe....I'm crying! I'm such a daddys girl! Thank you Donna!... I remember this....I remember my little shirt and I remember the wonderful staff @ camp who made a name tag for me so I could be just like them! ;)

Gary: That sure is a cute little girl.

Leah: She's a Daddys Girl all the way! Was then and still is!....These are all such beautiful memories for me...absolutely beautiful!! And I am still pretty much that same little girl!!!! :) Thank you all for sharing all of this, so very much!!!!!!!!!!! Love and blessings to all of you!!!!

Gary: What fun days in Cedar Hill at Mt. Lebanon. My youth has been renewed.

Valleta: I am OVERWHELMED... so many emotions. She LOVES her daddy and has followed in his footsteps with her incredible voice and songwriting gift... this is an incredible picture. Thank you for posting it....You will NEVER know how precious they are to us.... They love each other so much. This picture is beyond words to all of us. Thank you.

For 32 years that photo stayed in a box, shuffled from closet to attic to basement. Why did it take me so long to share it?

Why did it take years to recognize that the ability to see and capture that moment is a gift, meant to be exercised and shared?

I have so many stories and photos of my experiences, places I've been, people I've learned from. I've been keeping them to myself. It's time to share them, so I've started writing a book. Hopefully, they will touch hearts, spread hope and open eyes to new possibilities.

What are you keeping hidden away that could be a blessing to someone?

Isn't it time you shared?

You never know what kind of blessing you may receive in return. To see what I mean, just listen to this song, by the little girl in that picture, Leah Lanier. Thank you, Leah!

Stars & Strikes Donations

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:44:00 +0000

My Life is a Soap Opera Blake Mug by donnapool
Browse more Soap Mugs

Last year I donated a couple of my mugs to be included in the Daytime Stars & Strikes auction to benefit the American Cancer Society. I bought the mugs for around $15 each. At auction, they went for $50 each. I wasn't able to be there myself but I felt like I'd had a little part in this wonderful charity event.

I wish I'd been able to donate more items but that was all I could afford to give at the time. This year I'd like to see if I can get more people to donate some of the soap opera themed merchandise from my shops on Zazzle and CafePress. I've been in touch with the organizers of the event and they would love to have more items to auction. (Several of my designs are now in the official ABC stores for All My Children, One Life To Live and General hospital in the fan-made section.)

You can buy any soap opera related merchandise from my Zazzle shop or any of my CafePress shops (something that can be autographed by the stars at the event would be best). Just use the address below as the "ship to" address when placing your order and know that the item will be auctioned off at Daytime Stars and Strikes event, October 9, 2011 in New York City. Then email Wendy at wmadore@aol.com to let her know about your donation.

Sundi McCormick
385 South End Avenue #7E
New York, NY 10280

You can buy from the Venice shop, too and have it shipped to that address!

If you're favorite character isn't here, just leave a comment for me... I take requests!

My Zazzle shop's soap opera products can be found here: http://bit.ly/oFHSDA

And here is a list of my shops on CafePress :

Guiding Light:
I Want To Live In Springfield
http://www.cafepress.com/donnapool
The Afterglow Lives On
http://www.cafepress.com/ddpoolAfterglow
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Olivia Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/GLOliviaDo

One Life To Live:
I Want My OLTL http://www.cafepress.com/IWantMyOLTL
My Life Is a Soap Opera... What Would Inez Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLInezDo
My Life Is a Soap Opera... What Would Nora Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLNoraDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Dorian Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLDorianDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Blair Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLBlairDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Clint Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLClintDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would the Cramer Women Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLCramerWomenDo

All My Children:
I Want My AMC
http://www.cafepress.com/IWantMyAMC
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Erica Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/AMCEricaDo
My Life Is a Soap Opera... What Would Kendall Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/AMCKendallDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Bianca Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/AMCBiancaDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Greenlee Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/AMCGreenleeDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would the Kane Women Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/AMCKaneWomenDo

General Hospital:
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Sonny Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/GHSonnyDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Jason Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/GHJasonDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Brenda Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/GHBrendaDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would the Davis Girls Do?
http://www.cafepress.com/GHDavisGirlsDo

Miscellaneous:
My Life Is A Soap Opera... I Need An Evil Twin
http://www.cafepress.com/NeedEvilTwin

The Story That Won't Be Told

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 21:59:00 +0000

I wasn't holding a grudge. Not exactly.

But I remembered what happened.

I didn't keep it sitting on the top of my stack of daily worries

where I could review it at will

stewing over the details.

and plotting revenge.

But I knew where it was filed away

just in case I should ever need it

reminding me to never again trust that person too much.

I wasn't supposed to know anything about it in the first place.

It wasn't even about me.

I only knew about it because someone involved trusted me

and let me in on a few details.

I knew I didn't have the whole picture but I knew enough to figure it out.

Or I thought I'd figured out what really happened.

The people involved simply gave in to their weaknesses and made bad decisions.

And my family got caught in the crossfire of their battle.

Nothing we could do to stop it at the time.

In many ways we're still trying to regain our balance.

No, I wouldn't call it a grudge.

But I wasn't letting go of it, either.

Recently, I heard the rest of the story.

It was refreshing to know that my suspicions were correct,

and that those involved recognized their error.

And what it cost us.

There is no going back.

Nothing will really fix it.

Things happen and life goes on.

No need to even talk it out with those involved.

We do the best we can with what we have

and try to make sure that nobody else gets hurt.

No, it wasn't a grudge

exactly.

But somehow, my load is lighter today.

My Mother and the Mavericks

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:49:00 +0000

My mother passed away on May 28, 2006 after suffering for years with a chronic lung disease. We had a beautiful memorial service for her, which she had planned herself, and shared memories and hugs and tears with family and friends at a reception afterward.

As I was visiting with one of my old friends from grade school during the reception, she invited me to attend the Mavericks game with her that night. A season ticket holder, Ana never missed a home game, and this one was Game Five of the Western Conference finals.

I wasn't sure that was an appropriate way to spend the evening after my mother's memorial service. But when I mentioned it to my brother and my sister they each looked at me, their eyes wide with excitement and said, "GO!" We'd already had time with all the visiting relatives the day before and everyone assured me that my mother would approve. So I accepted Ana's invitation.

Ana picked me up that evening and we went to her favorite sports bar for dinner, watching the first few minutes of the game on the TV screens there since we were running a little late. I told Ana how everyone had said Mom would be delighted that I had a chance to go the game since she had been such a big fan. Ana was astonished to hear that.

"Your mom was a sports fan?!"

Ana knew my mother as a very proper lady who attended church regularly, ran an efficient home and kept everything neat and tidy, even finding time to sew clothes for her daughters. Her childhood memory of my mom was of a sort of June Cleaver for our neighborhood, without the pearls and high heels, sort of a blend of Betty Crocker and Martha Stewart. That was a pretty accurate picture. But I told Ana about my mother's penchant for the old Saturday Night Wrestling shows which she watched on a little black & white TV throughout all three of her pregnancies, a craving that was probably healthier than mine for Dutch Chocolate Blue Bell ice cream.

Mom was a big fan of the Texas Rangers, the Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Mavericks. She never missed a game on TV, making sure somebody looked up the time and the channel for her when she was bedridden so she wouldn't miss a minute. She'd yell at the players on TV when they were losing and cheer when they were winning. I was sure she was smiling down on me. I became more certain as the evening wore on.

We left the restaurant sometime during the first quarter and made our way through a brief rain shower across downtown to the arena. As the rain let up and the evening sun broke through we saw a double rainbow, from one end to the other, perfectly framing the Dallas skyline. It was so beautiful it took our breath away and Ana turned to me and said, "Donna! It's your mother!"

When we got to the arena, Ana approached the closest parking lot, telling me she never found an open space there and since we were running late it was probably chained off by now anyway. But the lot was open and we found a parking space waiting for us, not far from the entrance to the arena. Again, Ana said, "Donna! It's your mother!"

The Mavericks had been trailing so far in this game against the Phoenix Suns but as we found our seats, they scored and took the lead. And Ana said, "Donna! It's your MOTHER!!" She kept repeating that phrase as Dirk Nowitzki went on to score a total of 50 points during that game, 22 of them in the fourth quarter and the Mavericks won the game 117 - 101.

And it didn't stop then. On our way to the car, Ana stopped to buy a t-shirt. She was hoping to find one particular design in a certain size and was pretty sure they'd be sold out. But they had it in stock. Of course they did. She gave my mom credit for that one, too.

The next morning at breakfast I told my family the story of my mother and the Dallas Mavericks. At first they giggled a bit, but then they sat quietly as, one by one, I related the events of the night before.

They agreed with Ana.

"It was your mother."

Kim Crow Adams, Ana Saldana and me at the reception after my mother's memorial service

Derby Day

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Sat, 07 May 2011 19:15:00 +0000

It's Derby Day!

When I was a little girl we never missed the Kentucky Derby. It was the only glimpse we got of my mother's home state, that mythical land called "Kentucky".

My mother's stories of her childhood in Kentucky told of mountains and snow, two things we didn't have in suburban Dallas. The closest I usually got to horses was the "Black Stallion" novels in my school library, but I read all of them over and over again.

I loved horses. Still do.

I have a very early memory - I think I was about three years old - of going with my Uncle Marshall to say hello to two horses that lived nearby when he was pastor of a small town church in Central Texas. The horses came right up to the fence and let us pet them. Uncle Marshall said their names were Thunder and Lightning. Since I loved thunderstorms that made me love them even more.

I'm not sure why I've always loved horses. Maybe it's the way they so patiently stand by and let us puny little humans lead them about and faithfully carry us on their backs. Maybe it's the perfect combination of beauty and power so evident as they thunder down the track. But it probably has more to do with their big soft eyes and the way their ears twitch back and forth as they listen to our voices and their soft noses that nuzzle their people.

When I was in sixth grade I used to visit my friend, Tricia, who lived closer to the edge of town where they could keep a horse. Half horse, half Welsh pony, Babe wasn't that big as horses go. Sleepovers at Tricia's house meant big trees, dogs, cats, an illusive, screaming peacock and riding Babe bareback. I did lose my balance and fall off once but I got right back on her and rode some more.

I've had a couple of other opportunities to ride horses (not bareback), usually at a slow walk or an easy trot. But just once, the horse I was riding broke into an easy gallop. It was only for a few strides but I loved that feeling of power and freedom.

Recently, when the movie "Secretariat" came out, I searched Youtube and let my daughter watch Secretariat run those Triple Crown races. She was in awe, just as I had been when I watched them the first time around. Best. Horse.Ever.

So today I'll be watching the Kentucky Derby and remembering my mother's voice singing along with "My Old Kentucky Home".

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

May 1st

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Tue, 03 May 2011 21:38:00 +0000

May 1st will be remembered by many as the day Osama Bin Ladin was killed just as another generation remembers it as the day of Hitler's death. But a friend of mine will remember it as the day her mother died. Make that two friends.

For weeks I've been in touch with a friend I met on Twitter as she has cared for her dying mother, trying to offer some encouragement as I remember my own mother's long struggle before a chronic lung disease finally took her life. Late Sunday night my friend let me know that her mother had passed away. That same night I signed into Facebook and read that one of my old high school friends had lost her mother that day, too.

I watched all the news on TV about the death of Osama Bin Ladin and I thought about my two friends and I could not bring myself to celebrate death.

Anyone's death.

I thought about the Navy Seals who had trained for this mission and did the job they were sent to do. I understand why they did it and I have to say that I felt a sense of relief that this man would no longer be able to spread death far and wide and incite hatred throughout the world.

But I have no wish to join the ranks of those whose response to these events is to cheer as though they were at a high school football game.

Instead, I hope
    I will continue to do
        what I try to do
            every day.

Where there are differences,
    seek peace and understanding.

Where there is pain and emptiness,
    spread love.

Where there is despair,
    share hope for a better tomorrow.

And as God gives me opportunities,

    lead others to do the same.

Wide-angle vs. Telephoto

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:08:00 +0000

It's been years since I worked for a university PR department and hefted my twenty pound camera bag up to my shoulder, taking off across the campus to shoot a groundbreaking or a basketball game or a student assembly. But it's amazing how my mind still defaults to photography metaphors.

This week was a stressful one for me. For a couple of days it seemed that all I could see was a wide angle view of dead or dying possibilities for my own life, like a panorama of a dry and barren desert.

The more I studied the picture the worse I felt. It's comforting to know that with so many other families currently in job-hunting mode like mine I'm in good company. But comfort won't pay the bills. So many choices are out of my hands and it seems there is precious little I can actually control these days.

When I can't make sense of the big picture, it's time to change lenses.

I reached into my virtual camera bag and exchanged my wide angle lens for a telephoto. Instead of the looming forest of trouble I tried zooming in on just one tree at a time.

Sometimes stress fills the frame until it's all you can see.

The longer you look at it

the worse you feel

and the harder it is to cope.

Maybe you're looking at a long list of troubles, feeling like you'll never fix them all. But you can take a step toward fixing just one.

It could be a step in the right direction.

While you can't get anywhere by ignoring problems or side-stepping them, you can develop selective focus. You decide what to focus on and how long you'll stare.

It's your choice.

What do you see when you look at this photo...

the dead leaves...

the cactus thorns...

or the flower?

NYC: Lost and Found, Part Four

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:57:00 +0000

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

The story of my weekend in New York City pales in comparison to the news we received this week of the cancellation of All My Children and One Life to Live. Twitter and Facebook have been abuzz with heartbroken soap fans consoling each other and sharing memories since the news was announced. A part of me feels like it's silly to write about anything else right now.

But then it occurred to me that I went to New York because of a soap opera, to attend a fan luncheon for a soap opera actress, Jessica Leccia. I visited with friends I'd met from all over the world because of our shared love of soap operas and the people who make them.

What better way to celebrate this wonderful, truly life-changing genre than by telling the rest of my story?

During the weeks leading up to our weekend in New York City, Denise, Lynn and I had decided to stay an extra day so we could visit Peapack, the site of the Guiding Light location shoots. But when Sunday arrived we considered how much time we'd spend on the train getting to and from Peapack and the fact that we'd have another three hour train ride later than night to my home in Maryland, and we decided to spend that time in the city after all.

Denise and I walked to the Westway Diner (the same place we'd had dinner Friday night) to meet her friend, Bettie (@bettielaven), whom I'd met when I came to New York for the Venice event at the RF Lounge back in October. (Bettie was the one who had hailed a taxi to take me back to my hotel!) We were soon joined for a late brunch by Lynn and Lia (@giftofamber). By the time we finished, Jill had made enough progress on her work during the morning that she gave herself the afternoon off and came to meet us there.

It doesn't matter to me where we go when I'm walking with Jill in New York because I know wherever we end up will be new to me and there are so many fascinating things to see along the way. But Jill always asks, “Where do you want to go? Is there anything in particular you want to see?” And once again, I tell her, “I don't care, I only come to New York to see you!” She always laughs as though nothing could be more ridiculous. Why would anybody want to see her?

But as I'm hanging back from the others a little, stopping now and then to take a picture, I see how we are all just glad to be there with her. We answer her questions about our everyday lives and eagerly pick up little tidbits she happens to toss out about Guiding Light or people whose names we know well but have never met. She is quick to point out what each of us have in common with people she has known for years, famous or otherwise. Jill is fascinated by people and loves hearing their stories.

Jill took us to 48^th Street where her husband, Tony, told her we'll find guitar stores. During my last visit in October, Jill & I had passed a store with beautiful guitars in the display window... electrics and acoustics, some new and some vintage... and I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared. It was Matt Umanov's Guitars. I'd seen their ads in Vintage Guitar magazine. We went inside and I did some more staring and I pointed out a Martin D-15 that was like mine.

I've been playing guitar since I was a teenager and used to play and sing for my church and other groups quite often. Not particularly well, and I don't play in public much anymore but it can be like therapy for me to take out my guitar and play even for a few minutes. I had told Jill a story about a guitar I'd bought for a song, literally. The original owner asked only that I teach him a song he'd heard me play and sing once. And on this day, Jill wanted to find a guitar store for me.

We stopped at Sam Ash and Jill told me to go on in and they'd wait there for a bit. So I did. I went through the store and up the stairs in the back where all the acoustic guitars were. Across the length of the showroom was a smaller room with the lights lowered and fine acoustic guitars lining the walls. Martins, Gibsons, some new, some vintage. I could have spent hours there.

I spotted a small bodied Gibson that I'm pretty sure was like one that had belonged to my dad's Uncle Floyd. It had come us when he died and my brother used it when he took guitar lessons. I took piano lessons, not guitar, but I remember spying on my brother's lessons as he was learning how to play that guitar, taught by a family friend. Unfortunately, the guitar was very old and too warped to play by the time I started learning and I never did play a Gibson L1.

Until that day in Sam Ash.

The man working there handed me the guitar and I sat on a stool and started to play. In a few minutes Denise showed up and picked out another guitar and started to play, too. Then the others filtered in one by one. I played and sang a song I used to do for groups about where you go when you've come the end of your road. I played Jill a little bit of the song that bought me that old guitar I'd told her about. Bad allergies have lowered my vocal range considerably and I can't reach the high notes anymore so I spared them the misery of listening to the whole song!

Many thanks to Jason Jenkins, a very accomplished musician who showed us what guitar playing really sounds like and gave us a mini-lesson in the different types of wood used to make some of the guitars on display. And many thanks to Jill, Denise, Bettie and Lia who let me take up part of their afternoon indulging my musical fantasies!

From there we followed Jill to Grand Central Station, a place she said everybody should see. I agree. Jill, Denise & Lee stayed put at the top of the stairs, giving Lynn and I a little time to take a few pictures of that beautiful place we'd seen in so many movies. I turned at the bottom of the stairs to look up at the group and took a few pictures of them, too. Each of us from different backgrounds, different states and one from New Brunswick, Canada, I took a moment to smile at our diversity before we went downstairs to rest and warm up a bit with hot chocolate and cheesecake.

Throughout the afternoon I heard stories from each person in turn, about their life and the people they've met and the stories they wanted to tell in their writings. There in the Dining Concourse of Grand Central Station we heard about the time that Bettie met Eartha Kitt in a hotel lobby in London. It's a wonderful story, but I'll let her tell it. We heard more from Jill about Guiding Light and talked about Crystal Chappell and how she had been overlooked for an Emmy pre-nom. And we continued our conversation about writing and soaps and what might have been.

With just a couple of hours to go until time for us to get to Penn Station, Jill and I left the others to have dinner on our own and get caught up. I told her all the news about my husband and daughters and we talked about personal projects and hopes and dreams. I told her about going to see “Love, Loss and What I Wore” and about the growing urgency I feel about writing my book, a project I never really thought I could take on until Jill believed in me.

We didn't solve any great mysteries of the universe but when it was time to go I felt encouraged, challenged and hopeful and I hope she did, too.

I took a taxi back to the hotel to meet Denise and Lynn where we gathered our bags and went on to Penn Station to catch our train. Once we were aboard, Lynn proved that her claims of being able to sleep anywhere are valid. I think she was asleep before the train left the station. Meanwhile, Denise and I tweeted and talked all the way.

It was well after midnight when our train finally arrived in New Carrollton, having been delayed a bit along the way and I was delighted to see my husband waiting for us on the platform. I got my guests settled in Daughter #1's old room and headed for bed myself, telling them I'd try not to wake them up when I got Daughter #2 up at 5:30am to get ready for school (I always go back to bed for a couple more hours!).

The next morning I heard my guests laughing. It seems the view of the lamp in their bedroom gave these two lesbians the giggles. I can't imagine why....

I took Denise and Lynn to Historic Downtown Annapolis for a brief tour, pointing out my favorite views from the Severn River Bridge. I drove them around our little town, driving them past the statehouse and the Naval Academy's Gate One and telling them a bit about our history, then parked the car so we could walk around City Dock. I wish we'd had more time but at least they got a little taste of the place before we had to drop Denise off at BWI airport for her flight home. Lynn and I drove back to Annapolis so she could take a few more pictures and get some souvenirs before time to pick up Daughter #2 at school. Then the two of us took Lynn to the New Carrollton Amtrak station and waited with her until it was time for her train to leave. (I recommend you stop by Lynn's blog and see her pictures of Annaplis because she got some great shots.)

It was a remarkable weekend spent making memories with amazing friends. All because I watch soap operas and they do, too. Because it's not about the plot or the stunts, it's about relationships. That's why we care. Because we've watched those relationships grow and change over the years and when we find someone else who watches, too, we feel a connection with them because they've taken that journey with us.

We're all part of the family.

I'm ready for another family reunion.

How about you?

NYC: Lost and Found, Part Three

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 02:15:00 +0000

(Part One of this New York adventure can be found here and Part Two is here. Click on the photos to see them larger.)

Jessica had agreed to do a few reenactments of her scenes as Natalia, Inez and Ani. Those who might have requested a reenactment of the shower scene from Venice were disappointed but volunteers were found for three other scenes: the rooftop encounter between Ani & Lara and Gina & Tracy (Venice), Inez confronts Eddie and slaps him (OLTL), and the Otalia spa fight (GL).

My personal favorite was the spa fight with Desiree Pernaselci (@DesireePernasel on Twitter) playing the part of Olivia. Napkins took the place of the bras that were flung in the original scene and both Desiree and Jessica substituted some great zingers for the original dialog! I thought the best one was “Olivia's” crack about a chastity belt and “Natalia's” comeback: “I was gonna give you the key!”

Let me just say that I was delighted a few months ago when I saw Crystal Chappell ask Desiree, via Twitter, to be in Season 3 of Venice. Now that I've seen this little bit of improv, I can't wait to see what she'll be doing! And I really wish somebody would cast Jessica in a primetime sitcom because her comic timing is right on the money!

After the scene reenactments were over we had more time for talking with Jessica and taking pictures. Brian showed up to join in the fun, too. And when Jill Lorie Hurst arrived I think I heard a genuine “Squeee!” from Jessica who greeted her with a huge hug. It was obvious that they were delighted to see each other again! As they were talking I had several of my friends, who knew that I knew Jill, come up to me and ask, “Is that Jill Lorie Hurst? I would love to meet her!” So I had the honor of introducing them, giving my friends a chance to tell Jill how much her work has meant to them and giving Jill a chance to see that she really does have her own fanbase!

When the luncheon was officially over we went back upstairs and Denise, Lynn, and I talked with Jill, Jessica and Brian. Jessica said she'd seen me being all “ninja-photographer”, suddenly appearing out of nowhere to shoot a picture with no flash, then disappear again. Brian demonstrated the way I'd slowly peeked around someone to see if I had a good angle, then disappeared again without taking the shot. Then Jessica started doing it, too, and we were cracking up! Wish I'd gotten a picture of that! I explained to them that when I worked as a photographer years ago in Texas I was doing PR photography on a small Baptist campus and I was often shooting in worship services there and for my church. I learned to get my shots without disturbing anyone, shooting with no flash, just available light. It was good training if you want to be a ninja-photographer!

When the luncheon was over Denise, Lynn and I left with Jill, walking to who knows where. I never care where we're going because Jill always knows interesting places to go and it's all about the time with friends, anyway. We got as far as Union Square park and found a bench there so we could sit and talk for a while and decide where to go next. Lynn took a couple of pictures of Jill, Denise and I while we were there. We decided on an early dinner and Jill found a great little diner where Lynn presented her with a copy of the Otalia Virtual Season, Season 1. Jill said she'd wait to read it until she finishes her writing for Venice since those characters were already in her head.

After dinner Jill had things to do at home so we made plans to meet the next day. The three of us went back to the hotel but didn't stay long. Denise took us walking through her old stomping grounds in the theater district while Lynn and I took pictures of nighttime in New York. We stopped for a moment at the Marquis Theater Stage Door and she told us a bit about why that one was special to her:

The Marquis Theatre stage door IS NY to me for a lot of reasons. It's where a lot of really important events in my life have happened, from the birth of the website I run (MeganHiltyOnline.com) to the start of several incredibly important friendships. It's where I said goodbye to the first Broadway show I was with as fan and supporter from virtually its first preview performance until it's last moment on a Broadway stage (9 to 5). It's where the life I have now really came to be. Every time I come to New York, I walk past the Marquis stage door, and if he's there, I give the stage door manager Rey a big hug and catch up on what's been going on at the theater. It's like visiting a childhood home - I can never go back, but I will never, ever forget how it shaped who I am.

We walked through Times Square and on to Rockefeller Center to watch the skaters, taking pictures all the way. I still have more to edit, but I'll share a few of my favorites here. I spotted a couple of familiar faces in the crowd and grabbed a quick shot... can you spot Cutter and Joey from One Life to Live?

Only one more day left of my weekend in NYC so come back for Part Four for the rest of the tale!

NYC: Lost and Found, Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 01:08:00 +0000

(Part One of this New York adventure can be found here.)

I was awakened Saturday morning by a phone call from, Dominick, the Amtrak conductor who found my lost wallet, telling me what train was bringing it back to New York and when it was due to arrive. At the appointed time I walked from the hotel to Penn Station, arriving at 11:45am, just moments after my wallet did. I picked it up at Customer Service and yes, everything was still in it! Thank you, Amtrak and Dominick! I took a cab from Penn Station to Brother Jimmy's and made it just in time for Jessica Leccia's luncheon which started at noon!

The first time I walked into Brother Jimmy's, the weekend of Crystal Chappell's fan luncheon last fall, I was a little nervous about meeting people I'd only “met” online, although I had interacted with many of them daily for months. This time I felt like I was rushing to a family reunion. I wanted hugs and photos and laughter and lots of each of them. I wasn't disappointed.

I quickly found Denise and Lynn who had saved a place for me at their table. I set my coat and bag down, grabbed my camera and started shooting. A few hugs and pictures later I heard someone say that Jessica had just arrived. She had slipped in quietly and was halfway across the room before most of us noticed her! Sneaky! I started taking pictures as she began to make her way from table to table, greeting people, giving autographs & hugs and smiling for photos. She was meeting some for the first time while others were like old friends, having attended several other events, too.

I did my best to get some pictures of her as she was making her way around the room. I always prefer shooting candid photos without flash whenever I can but because of the low light and the arrangement of the tables I did have to shoot with flash more than I had at Crystal's luncheon. I'd much rather slip in and out among the crowd taking candids than to have people pose for my pictures.

When it was my turn to talk with Jessica I told her I'd brought something for her and she said, “Oh, Donna! What did you do?!” She and Brian both loved the Dimples design I'd done with Jessica's smile (I'd sent a t-shirt and buttons for her last year when I couldn't attend the luncheon myself). This year I gave her a “My Life is a Soap Opera: What Would Ani Do?” t-shirt I'd gotten from my Zazzle shop and some buttons and magnets I'd made with the same design. She took out the t-shirt and held it up for pictures. When she said her mama would want some buttons and magnets I gave her my business card so she'd know where to find more if needed. She signed the 8x10 photo that was included in the packets we'd been given when we arrived and she also signed a “My Life Is a Soap Opera... What Would Natalia Do?” graphic for me. (Thanks for this photo, Lynn!)

While she was at our table, someone presented her with a stuffed bunny rabbit and when you squeezed its foot, the ears wiggled. Jessica loved it and kept making the ears wiggle over and over. We're pretty sure the batteries were dead by morning!

Next was a gift of Jessica's favorite Girl Scout Cookies, Peanut Butter Patties. She wasted no time tearing into the package. It takes more than one picture to show how much she enjoyed that gift!

Questions had been submitted ahead of time for a Q&A session and we learned a little bit more about Jessica. We found out that if she hadn't been an actress she'd want to be a meterologist or an obstetrician, despite the fact that she isn't good in Math or Science. She said she does audition for theater roles but feels more comfortable with television.( If you were there, please leave a comment here and tell us what your favorite questions and answers were!)

Jessica's husband, Brian Malloy, came downstairs to our meeting room after the Q&A. Brian, the manager of the Brother Jimmy's location where the luncheon was held, is a darling man who has a fan following of his own as Jessica's fans have made Brother Jimmy's a favorite meeting place in New York City. From time to time he stopped in to see how things were going, posed for a few pictures, then gathered up the gifts people had brought for Jessica and set them aside for her. This time I made a point of having my picture taken with Brian since I'd forgotten to do that the last time I was there.

Next came the scene re-enactments, but those will have to wait for Part Three! Coming Soonish!

NYC: Lost & Found

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:07:00 +0000

The first time I took the train to New York City I went with my family to celebrate my daughter's 18^th birthday and found a new friend. Jill Lorie Hurst met our train at Penn Station and spent the day with us as tour guide. We adopted her as an honorary member of the family. Jill has challenged me to see myself with new eyes, to think of myself as a writer, and to tell my stories.

The second time I took the train to New York City, I went alone to attend Crystal Chappell's fan events. A generous Twitter friend (@valluv1) had offered to share her hotel room so I could go to a Venice event Saturday night and to Crystal's fan club luncheon on Sunday. Twitter friends became real life friends and I was amazed that Crystal and Kimmy knew who I was! As I took pictures with my new DSLR I felt like a real photographer again. And once more, Jill broadened my horizons as she brought me into a discussion about soaps with her friends, a former Soap Opera Digest editor, Melissa Scardaville, and a current writer for the Young & the Restless, Tom Casiello.

The third time I took the train to New York City was just a couple of weekends ago. I went to attend Jessica Leccia's fan luncheon, but so much happened in such a short time that I'm still processing it all. Instead of a chronological report, like the one I wrote about Crystal's fan club luncheon, I've decided on a topical approach.

Lost and Found: The Wallet

The first thing I did when I got to New York was lose my wallet. Really.

As I stepped off the train I thought I might have dropped something so I stopped and looked behind me. I didn't see anything on the platform or in the doorway of the train car I'd just left so I went on to meet Lynn (@Ceridwyn2) and head to the hotel where I was sharing a room with Denise (@jessiewolf). When I got to the front desk and reached and for my wallet to show them my driver's license I realized I did not have my wallet.

Oh. So that's what I dropped.

I called my husband and credit cards were reported lost and canceled. I called Amtrak, too, just in case someone might find the wallet and turn it in. I called Jill to let her know what was happening, too, as we had made tentative plans for her to meet with us later during a break from work. Lynn walked with me to find a branch of my bank and get a cash advance to see me through the weekend while Denise tried to get a little sleep since she had arrived on a red-eye flight that morning.

When we got back to the hotel I got a call from my husband saying he'd heard from the conductor on my train. He'd found my wallet... with everything – including the cash – still in it! My wallet would be going all the way to the end of the line in Boston and then he'd put it on another train back to New York the next morning for me to pick up at Penn Station.

When I called Jill to tell her the news that my wallet had been found she said, “You have some kind of crazy karma, young lady!” I replied, “I. Am. Blessed!” The next morning I walked to Penn Station, picked up my wallet that had just arrived on the train from Boston, took a cab to Brother Jimmy's and got to Jessica Leccia's luncheon before it started.

I'd like to say that the wallet was the only thing I lost during the weekend, but it wasn't. I got all the way back home to Maryland before I realized that the fan packet I'd received at Jessica's luncheon, along with the things she had autographed that were in it, did not make it home with me. I put a quick inquiry out on Twitter and discovered that it had been found at Brother Jimmy's, where the luncheon was held, and is being mailed to me! Thank you, Sharon (@golffitz) and Val (@RdBlaz) and Brother Jimmy's! Oh, and my lost hotel key card turned up in the laundry once I got home, too, having apparently been tucked away in the one pocket I did not check at the hotel in New York.

For the rest of my stay in NYC, if anyone around me dropped or lost anything, someone would look at me and say, “It's contagious!” I know Somebody was looking out for me all weekend and my friends took very good care of me! Thank you, all!

Love, Loss and What I Wore

Friday night, Denise and Lynn and I had dinner with a couple of Denise's friends at the Westway Diner, then Denise and I went to see Kim Zimmer in “Love, Loss and What I Wore” at the Westside Theater. I knew what this show was about ...using clothing and accessories to bring out women's stories about life... and I knew it would be good. But I didn't expect it to affect me the way it did.

I think I cried for the last twenty minutes of the show.

It was funny, touching, hilarious, poignant... did I mention funny? So many of the stories struck a familiar chord with me and reminded me of myself or women I've known and/or been related to throughout my life. But I lost it when they put up the drawing of a little girl who had been playing dress up in her grandmother's closet. The grandmother took such delight in her granddaughter's imaginative play and I couldn't help but think of my mother and my mother-in-law and all the times my two daughters had done the same thing.

Specific photographs I'd taken of my girls came to mind, all dressed up in their grandmother's clothes, hearing my mother talk about how much fun she'd had painting my niece's fingernails and doing her hair, watching my older daughter dress up her little sister to put on a play in front of their grandmother's fireplace... all these things danced through my mind as tears quietly ran down my cheeks. And I promised myself that I would do all I could to preserve these stories and tell them over and over again to my daughters and nieces and their daughters, too, now that my mother and mother-in-law are both gone.

And then the voice of the author came from the stage, saying she couldn't imagine how anybody would want to publish a book of her little personal stories. But they did. Because the stories were personal for other people, too.

During the past year or so, I've been thinking about writing a book. And much of what I've thought of writing are my own “little personal stories”. I've wondered if I could do it. I've wondered if what I wanted to say most has already been said by someone else, better than I could ever say it. I've wondered why anybody would want to read it since much of what I'd thought of writing is just things I've lived through.

I've always thought that everybody has a story. And as I sat in the Westside Theater, with tears streaming down my face, I thought, “OK. I get it, God. It's time I told mine.”

And that was Day One of my weekend in New York City.

It began with a wallet lost.

It ended with a purpose found.

Desegregation

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 12:20:00 +0000

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year I watched Oprah's special show about race in America and thought of growing up in Dallas in the '60's. When they talked about the Little Rock 9 I was reminded of the desegregation of the schools in the '70's. I was in the eighth grade then.

The youngest of three children in my family, I followed my older brother and sister through the neighborhood schools where the teachers were well acquainted with my family and sometimes slipped and called me by my sister's name. From first through fifth grade I walked to school or rode my bike since the school was just five blocks from the only home I'd ever known. It was a neighborhood where Beaver Cleaver would have felt at home... simple houses with trees waiting to be climbed, basketball hoops above garages, and everybody knew which house on the block had the best yard for a game of baseball or football. Mine did (level yard, no fences, no trees).

I didn't think much about how white my world was. It was just my world. The people in my school were white. The people at my church were white. I saw mostly white people on all three channels on my black and white TV, too. Except for the news.

On the TV news shows we saw the Vietnam war and race riots and a man named Martin Luther King, Jr.. I can't remember any specific comments my parents made about such things but I know they didn't want to see anyone hurt or killed and they didn't think that we were any better than black people or anybody else. They spoke in respectful tones about Dr. King. At church we sang about Jesus loving all the little children, “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” In my home, we believed that.

When I visited friends in my neighborhood I sometimes heard words of anger and derision directed toward black people and it caught me by surprise. I thought my neighbors were good people, so how could they say such things? How could they think such things? Why would they speak in such hateful tones about people they didn't know, who had never done them any harm?

I began to realize that not everybody will see the world the way I do.

In sixth grade it became clear that I would take a slightly different path through the educational system than the one my older siblings had taken. A new school had been built and the line dividing our neighborhood went right down the middle of my street. I went to the new school. New teachers had never met my family, new students came from different neighborhoods. Paint fumes and sawdust and construction crews were still on site. We ate lunch at our desks for months because the cafeteria hadn't been completed yet. Neither had the gym so we played outside during recess, climbing on the ladders and giant cable spools that littered the schoolyard.

We were all getting used to something new and we had to work together and do the best we could with the inconveniences.

While I was getting used to this new school, my brother was a student at Hulcy Middle School that met in the top floor of Carter High School because the new middle school building was still a work in progress. When I became a seventh grader the next year, I joined him there. That year my brother and sister and I were all attending school in the same building again since my sister was a student in the high school.

With two schools squeezed into a space intended for one, conditions were very crowded. Desks lined up in the alcoves near the stairwells became study halls. Each locker was shared by at least four or five students. I can't imagine the logistical planning it took to get all of the students from both schools in and out of the one cafeteria every day for lunch. PE teachers would flip a coin to see which class would go outside while the other class used the gym. And if there's anything worse than being a lost little seventh grader running into a big ninth grade football player it's running into a big high school senior football player.

That year I had a black classmate for the first time. Robert Ware was the only black student in my junior high and he was my friend. If I remember correctly, the high school had three or four black students.

And then we got word that busing to achieve racial desegregation would begin in the Dallas schools the following year. Buses would start bringing black kids from their neighborhoods to our schools. Black families wondered why their kids were the ones who had to spend hours on the buses every day. Many white families moved to the suburbs or sent their kids to private schools because they didn't want their kids going to school with black kids.

Looking around my crowded classrooms my only question was, “Where are we going to put them all?”

The answer was... here and there.....

The ninth grade stayed at the high school. Half of the seventh grade stayed at the elementary schools where they had just finished sixth grade. The other half of the seventh grade and half of the eighth grade shared space with the rival junior high a few miles away, which I understand made life interesting the week the two teams played each other in football.

I was in the half of the eighth grade that attended classes at the Texas National Guard Armory out on Red Bird Lane, much further from my house than the high school and definitely off the beaten track.

Each morning, my mother would drive me through the familiar subdivisions near my house, out onto the two lane country highway, passing plowed fields and barns. Turning into the unpaved, caliche parking lot of the Texas National Guard Armory and driving around the military trucks and tanks, she deposited me on the doorstep of my new, makeshift school.

Inside I found a cavernous drill hall that I thought was bigger than several gymnasiums. I saw school desks lined up and grouped into four different classroom areas with a few movable blackboards and temporary partitions placed around them as dividers. They didn't help much because we could easily see and hear what was going on everywhere. If someone was in trouble in the English class, everybody at the other end of the drill hall heard the drama play out. Occasionally, a few soldiers in uniform would walk by and students would turn to face them and salute. Teachers had their hands full trying to keep the classes focused on their work. And every other week we helped the teachers pack things up to be moved out of the way while the paratroopers came in to train over the weekend.

The students at the armory were organized into two teams. One team attended each of the four core classes in turn – English, History, Math, and Science – while the other half went to Music, Art and Physical Education. Music class met in an actual classroom, Art class in the armory's Mess Hall. PE was outside when the weather was nice or squeezed into another small classroom inside when it wasn't. We all brought our lunches and ate wherever we happened to be when the lunch period began. After lunch, the teams switched places. The core classes group moved on to Music, Art & PE while the other team took it's place.

You might notice I haven't mentioned that for the first time in my life about half of my classmates were black. To me, this was just another year of classes with students and teachers who were new to me and with circumstances that were less than convenient.

Once again, we were all getting used to something new and we had to work together and do the best we could with the inconveniences.

Oh, and I just happened to have classmates who were black, too.

We spent one semester in that armory. Just a few short months. And little by little we got to know each other. The black students and the white students. The smart ones and the not so smart ones. The funny ones and the serious ones. Some were artistic. Some were scientists. Some were loud and some were quiet. Some you knew would be football stars next year. Some would clearly be voted most likely to succeed or star in the senior play or dance at your wedding.

I would like to tell you that the next semester, when our new school building was finally finished, we entered with hands clasped, singing as one a chorus of “We Shall Overcome”. But of course, we didn't.

Once again, we faced a new environment with lots of new teachers and students to get to know as the rest of our classmates came together from their scattered locations. Some adjusted more easily than others and yes, there were fights. We had police officers assigned to our building, as did other schools throughout the city. I had friends who were drawn into conflicts and some who were targeted. Small incidents could quickly become big ones and as I look back on it I greatly admire the best of my teachers who were able to win our trust and confidence and help bridge the gaps and ease the way for us along with teaching us decimals and literature and the periodic table. I'm sure the students brought their parents' attitudes and prejudices to school with them, just as I carried the lessons my parents had taught me.

I don't recall ever having a conflict with with other students based on race. I do recall some interesting talks with a couple of girls who seemed to always get in trouble and frequently found themselves in the principals office for fighting. We talked about why they got so angry and how they wanted to do better. I'm not sure why these tall, strong willed, outspoken black girls felt so comfortable talking with me, a skinny, artsy-nerdy white girl with long blond hair who was usually the teacher's pet. But I'm glad they did. Sometimes when I saw them getting in trouble again I'd catch their eye. And we both knew that they wanted to do better. And sometimes they did. I recall admiring their strength and hoping they would figure out how to put it to good use. I remember having similar conversations with white friends, too.

When I was an eighth grader I learned that it's not just about race, it's about culture. And I learned that what our respective cultures had in common was much greater than our differences.

I no longer attended a school in my small neighborhood, but my neighborhood grew a little larger that year.

Odd Jobs And Jack LaLanne

noreply@blogger.com (Donna Pool) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:37:00 +0000

While my husband was working on his Masters of Theology degree I was working on my PhT... “Putting Hubby Through” seminary. I took my BA in History and used it to fill in the blanks of applications for jobs that had nothing to do with my major but helped pay the bills while my husband worked part time and took a full load of classes.

One of those jobs was the one that paid for our first child's birth and introduced me to Eunice. Then I heard that a new Baptist cable TV network was in development in Ft. Worth and they were hiring. I became a secretary for a talk show a couple of months before it went on the air. We had two or three interviews and a musical guest on each one hour show and did them “live-to-tape”.

Working for the ACTS Network I found an interesting mix of creative professionals, ministers, broadcast technicians and other “seminary wives” like me. The work would turn out to be infinitely more interesting than typing numbers into a 10-key all day at my previous job. For the first few days I sat in the office with the show's two co-hosts and listened to them brainstorming and planning so I could figure out how to organize the information they would need. This was in the early '80s when the only computer in our department was one Apple IIe in the office of one of our bosses. He was learning to write programs for it in BASIC but all of us secretaries still had IBM Selectrics at our desks. When I set up the files they were in a filing cabinet, not a computer database.

During meetings with the show's hosts and producers, I was encouraged to share my own ideas for guests or interview questions and it was clear that our team was open to input from everyone. One of my duties was to type out the intros of the guests for the teleprompters and when we discovered that the intros written by the show's hosts were too long I made suggestions for editing them. Eventually, I started writing them myself. I just tried to imagine what would sound good to me if I were watching the show at home and I guess I did okay because they let me keep doing it. (Guess now I can add “writer for television” to my resume!)

I spent a lot of time on research, reading books that were sent to us from publishers in hopes that we'd book their authors. I'd take a book or two home at night, read it and bring it back to the hosts and tell them “Great book, but your interview is in Chapter 3. I underlined a couple of quotes for you.” Or I'd tell them the book was only so-so and the topic was too close to one we'd already covered and we'd pass on it. The producer of this show called me “Radar” because I could anticipate his decisions about the guests I suggested just as well as Radar on MASH anticipated the colonel's orders.

On taping days I met the guests when they arrived and escorted them to the studio, sometimes staying with them all day and even driving a few to the airport afterward. Because we could often schedule a guest on a couple of cable TV shows and a nationally syndicated radio show or two, all produced in the same building, we were able to book some fascinating guests who came through the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. I met some amazing people during my two years at that job. Being part of a creative, talented team that valued my input was an unforgettable experience.

About a year later, this show was replaced by a call-in talk show and I was promoted from secretary to production assistant with a greater role in booking guests. (The producer of this show, who had formerly worked at our local NBC affiliate, told me that if I'd done the same jobs in any other network or station I would have been called production assistant and then associate producer. But if they'd called me that they would have had to pay me more. Oh well.)

One day as I was scanning the newspaper for ideas for the show I saw an article about Jack LaLanne and a new exercise video he'd just released. I had watched his show when I was a preschooler, doing all the exercises along with my mom and Jack and Jack's beautiful white dog. I knew his high energy and enthusiasm and the popular topics of nutrition and fitness would be perfect for our call-in talk show. When I pitched it to the show's producer and hosts they loved the idea. Their only question was, “How do we contact him?”

Keep in mind this was during the pre-Google days. There was no contact information in the newspaper article I'd read, either. But I did have the name of the videotape.

I called a local video rental store and asked if they had the video. They did. I told the clerk that I was trying to find out how to contact Jack Lalanne and why and asked her to give me the name of the company that produced the video. She did. Finding a phone number for that company didn't take long and they gave me the number for Jack LaLanne's publicist. I told her all about our show and our little network and she said they'd gotten a couple of other inquiries from media outlets in Dallas and Houston. “Maybe we should go ahead and put together a media tour for him.”

When Jack LaLanne and his wife, Elaine, arrived at the Baptist Radio & Television Commission building I met them to escort them to the studio. I introduced myself and said, “I watched your show with my mom when I was a preschooler and we did all the exercises with you every day!” He grinned and said, “Well then I taught you how to count, didn't I?” And he started pumping his arms in a mock jumping-jack motion, saying “One! Two! Three! Four!”

Jack was a whirlwind of energy and joy and charmed everybody in the studio. His wife, Elaine, was just as charming and looked twenty years younger than her then actual age. After a lively interview segment tracing his career as a pioneer in the fitness industry we were ready to take calls and our phone lines lit up like a Christmas tree.

Jack fielded questions about nutrition and exercise from our show's hosts and from callers and the phones were still ringing when we signed off. He and Elaine happily demonstrated some exercises, too. After the taping was done for the day he continued to challenge and encourage the members of our crew. I wish I'd gotten a picture with the two of them.

I recently discovered that I can watch those old black & white Jack LaLanne TV shows on his website, . You can't watch for more than a minute or two before feeling like this man really wanted you to be successful in your very first attempts to exercise. He wanted you to feel good and be healthy, not just thin. When Jack opened his first gym people thought he was crazy. I'm glad – though not at all surprised – that he lived long enough for everyone to see that he was right all along.

It makes me a little sad to see so many different machines and gadgets and videos for sale. Oh, Jack did sell a “Glamour Stretcher” which was essentially a rubber resistance band. I still have one my mother ordered and yes, I use it now and then. And I know Jack LaLanne invented many of the machines that are now used in gyms all across America, and don't forget that juicer!

But success depends less on gadgets and more on attitude. And being thin doesn't make you happy. It doesn't necessarily make you healthy, either.

I confess I'm feeling a little nostalgic for a simple little black and white TV show with a man, his beautiful white dog and his encouraging words showing you how to do a few little exercises every day so you can feel better and live longer.

It wasn't just a show about exercise. It was a show about getting the most out of life. Jack knew that a little time effort will pay off. Just don't give up.

It sure worked for him.

Thank you, Jack.

This illustration by Andy Helms was especially commissioned just for this blog entry.

Thank you, Andy! You can see more of Andy's work at http://oktotally.tumblr.com/