I just found this site! I'm so happy to meet all of you, and I'm excited to get to know you.
I started watching GH in the late 70's, when I was in Junior High. My sister lived in the house next to my mom's house (where I lived) and, when I came home from school, I always visited my sister. She always had the TV on and she would tell me to, "Shh!" while some "soap opera" was on. How boring, right?
How could I not get hooked? My earliest memory was seeing a young girl and an older man arguing. He tore up a letter and he threw the pieces in the air. In slow motion, the shredded paper cascaded as the girl had tears streaming down her face.
The next thing I knew, the man was lying on the floor, head bleeding. Obviously, he had fallen and his head struck the stone fireplace. The girl had apparently had run out of the apartment.
A woman, whom I surmised was the girl's mother, had tracked her daughter to the man's apartment. She discovered the man. She knew he was dead. She assumed her daughter had caused his death.
I eventually learned that the girl's name was Laura. Her mother, a doctor at GH, lied to the police and claimed she had killed the man, David Hamilton. In the meantime, Laura had no memory of the events leading up to Hamilton's death. A trial followed. Laura was mad at her mother for killing Hamilton, until her memory of that night slowly came back to her. Would Laura confess to murder to prevent her mother's incarceration?
It was all resolved when Laura remembered how she had pushed David Hamilton just as he was able to accost her. He was surprised by her shove and he lost his footing. The cause of his death, therefore, was overturned from "murder" to "accidental." Laura's mother, Leslie Webber, was released from jail as the prosecutor dropped all charges and decided not to charge her for lying to authorities or hindering an investigation.
So as that story was being resolved...
Meanwhile, Leslie Webber is married to a surgeon named Rick. He has a brother named Jeff. Jeff is married to a woman named Heather. Heather is best friends with a nurse named Diana Taylor. Diana Taylor and her husband, Peter, couldn't have children, so they adopted a little boy and named him P.J. (Peter Jr.). Heather loved to babysit P.J., which was only natural because, in reality, P.J. is actually Heather's son, whom, while in disguise, she had sold her unborn child to the Taylors. After having given birth to her baby, Heather had convinced her husband Jeff that her baby had been kidnapped, which sent Jeff on a wild goose chase.
But Heather's son was right here in Port Charles, and her friends Diana Taylor and Peter adopted him, never realizing that they had adopted Heather's son, whom Heather had named "Steven Lars."
After Diana Taylor's husband's sudden death, Diana asked Heather to promise to take care of P.J. should anything ever happen to her. Short of having to kill Diana, Heather concocted a scheme to get Diana out of the picture: Make people believe that Diana was losing her mind and have her put in a mental institution. With Diana declared unfit for motherhood, Heather would finally get her son, Steven Lars, in her custody.
Heather's ex-husband was still madly in love with Heather, which Heather readily used to her own advantage, She had him wrapped around her little finger. Heather, who had read that the hallucinogenic drug LDC could render a person senseless. The symptoms of LCD poisoning mirrored the behaviors of mental illness. Heather intended to poison Diana with the drug and land Diana in an asylum. She enlisted the help of her ex-husband, Larry Joe Baker, to procure some LSD.
The Lazy Suzy Scene. While lunching at Diana's home, Heather laces Diana's iced tea with the LCD. The glasses were identical and happened to be resting on a lazy suzy. When they women were occupied in the kitchen, Toddler P.J. turns the lazy susan, thus switching the laced glass with the other one. The women emerge from the kitchen and immediately set out to take a huge swig of the cold drink. Nothing happens. Heather is surprised that Diana never started to rave like a lunatic.
Later, Heather comes home to find her husband, Jeff, accusing Healther of lying about their son's kidnapping. He finds evidence in her jewelry box in the form of threatening letters that Diana Taylor had reported being sent to her. It turns out, it was Heather after all. As she tries to come up with a story to tell Jeff, Heather suddenly says that the room was "full of colors." Heather had ingested the LSD was no longer debatable. She went mad.
Jeff put her in a sanitarium.
And then!
That was my introduction to GH. I was about 13, I think. I was already hooked.
And then came Luke and Laura.