Kind Readers, It was a bright Spring day with a sunset to rival any impressionist painting. As we finished our romantic dinner for two, I gazed into his piercing, blue as the sky eyes. "Sweetheart? Do you believe that we may have had past lives?" He lowered his head to a paper he held in his strong, callused hands. "I suppose anything is possible". His South Carolina drawl held strongly in the air. "Do you believe that love can last through the ages? Do you think that our love has always been, and will always last?" "Uh huh.... HEY! Home Depot has 2x4s on sale! I can finish the fence in the front yard! Where's my tape measure?" His words caught my heart like finger nails on a blackboard. Perhaps I shouldn't have burned the pork chops. Ain't love grand? Almost 18 years with the same wonderful, very handy man and I get the "I'm not paying any attention" uh huh. I guess I can't really expect soap opera romance. Thank God for that - we'd get cramps in our legs and laugh ourselves into traction. Let's not forget that love in the afternoon (in soapland) is a many complicated thing. People just don't fall in love and live happily ever after. That's way too boring for us fickled viewers. We have to have a challenge. Ironically, the challenges that we get on PC are part of the formulas found in the "Soap Opera Writer's Handbook": 1. The Hero or Heroine is already in a relationship/marriage. 2. The Heroine or Hero's shady past comes back to haunt them. 3. Someone else is lusting after the Hero or Heroine. 4. The Hero's family doesn't like the Heroine (or vise versa). 5. "Illegitimate" Children from a past love. 6. Death. Of course in soapland, no one ever really dies. The deceased often returns in time to complicate another romance. 7. Secrets, secrets, secrets. 8. Sci-fi, outside of reality plots. This includes brainwashing, psycho kidnappers, drugs, witches & demons, space aliens, quests for some ancient relic, time travel, and whatever plots are out on video. Having gone through most of the entire list, our beloved PC writers have come upon #8. You've got to give them credit for trying to be different with the time travel devise. It is quite interesting, and the message boards have been all abuzz. Our poor writers, however, didn't realize that even in the most outlandish of plots, there are still guidelines to follow. For instance, if you "lose" a character to a human blooper in the universe, every trance (or as much as possible) of that character has to go. Time travel is very mind boggling. For centuries, writers have dabbled with the concept, whether it's to go back to the past or ahead to the future. Film is the perfect medium for time travel. I remember seeing a black and white film from the late 1800s in college that touched on future space travel. I'm sure that all of you have some film in mind that has transported you, at least for two or three hours, to another time and place. The thing that is most interesting of all is the effect that a single human being has on the entire human race. One person's experience, their ideas and deeds would be gone by changing what appears to be the slightest thing. Frank Scanlon thought he was doing a good and decent thing by telling Cookie not to go to a school dance after drinking, with lovin' on her mind. Oops! Bye, bye Karen. We really feel for Frank, especially since he's the only one who notices a difference in life without Karen. The writers didn't think that we viewers would notice that nothing else seems to be effected. We can put together an endless list going back to General Hospital days, when Karen, Jason & Jagger were stranded on an island with escaped convicts. As I recall, one of them died from a confrontation with Karen. Without Karen, Cal could be the head of "the organization" instead of Sonny. Numerous messages on the boards point out how much Karen has contributed to the lives of the Port Charles doctors. For instance, her contribution to the DL56 formula saved alot of peoples' lives - including Frank's. If Karen had never existed, Frank would have been long gone to a fall from the roof of GH. Oops. Somebody please send a video of "It's a Wonderful Life" to the PC staff. As for the connection that we all have with each other, I can't help but think of an episode of the original "Star Trek". Dr. McCoy had fallen through a time portal on a distant planet back to the 1930s Earth, and saved the youthful Joan Collins from a fatal car accident. Suddenly, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock saw the Enterprise disappear from the sky. Mr. Spock found that Joan Collins' character would go on to achieve world peace for our entire planet. While this would have appeared to be a good thing, the result of peace would be the lack of nuclear power. It wasn't needed. There was no war for the powerful bomb to end. Consequently, there was no nuclear power as a base to build upon for space travel. No going where no one had gone before. An activist for peace would have to be sacrificed in order for a universe to be explored. There are so many complexities to our connections with each other. I don't think any mind can even grasp the consequences of a missing person, or their ideas and accomplishments. It just is not a simple thing. It was a dark and stormy night. The excitement of lightening filled the air. The meat loaf was perfectly cooked and the instant mashed potatoes weren't too soupy, this time. "Sweetheart?", I whispered softly through the glow of "Survivor II". "If you could go back in time and change anything, what would you change?" As I passed the peas, our eyes met as he spoke. "Not a thing, dear. Not a thing. I'd be afraid that if I changed just a little bit, I wouldn't have met you. I just couldn't take that chance". Wow. Love is grand! Question Everything, Smokey