How did A Patch of Sweetness come about?
This is a question, in one form or another, that has been asked by some fans of the website. Here is the long answer, and a history of my memory of S&K.
I think most of us S&K fans watched during Days "glory years" in the 80’s. I remember my big sister always talking about this couple on Days that she just loved. She’d rush home from school and turn on the TV. I eventually started watching with her. The earliest scene I remember is Kayla marrying Jack and Steve almost stopping it. And even then when I didn’t know much history about this couple I rooted for Kayla and Steve to be together. It was a great ride and I got to share it with my sister.
When Steve and Kayla finally officially married on the yacht my sister and I waited with baited breath. We knew that Kayla would get her speech back, but it was still magical to see it happen, and that weekend of July 23 and 24 of 1988 was the longest weekend. Waiting until Monday to see the rest of the beautiful fairy tale wedding of this couple I’d watched just less then a year, but felt so much investment in.
I remember Steve’s death being much sadder back then, and I think it was because I’d read in a SOD article that Stephen Nichols said he would never return to the part of Patch. It really was like a death to me and Days was never really the same.
Over the next few years, as we all grew, graduated High School and started college, even some of us started families, I still watched on occasion. I found other couples on the show I could invest in, though they were never Steve and Kayla. In a bit of a history repeat, I remember when Marlena came back, sitting on the couch with my sister, reminiscent of when Steve stood in the garden and watched Kayla get married. This was so reminiscent to me because my big sister had gone off to college 2 years earlier and moments like that were rare. I also remember my mom, who would watch on occasion but never really invested in the soap, referring to "Roman 1 or Roman 2" in a comical way, during that fiasco.
Eventually, around the time Kayla left, even though I’d become so busy by 1992 that I rarely watched (be glad I missed out on MOST of the horrible "never happened" pairing of Kayla and that other guy….never happened.’) ) Days fell to the wayside for me. Tough there would be occasional times I’d flip on to watch Jack and Jennifer or see the progress of Molly and Tanner. The nail in the coffin for me was when Marlena became possessed. I turned Days off and wouldn’t turn it on again for over 10 years.
A few years later I had my first child. I was a stay at home mom and started to watch Days briefly. It wasn’t the same. There was some faux dude playing Bo. Hope was gone. Kim and Shane were gone. What happened to Roman? Sami was hiding her son’s true paternity from Lucas. It was just not the show I’d fallen in love with. Instead I became invested in All My Children. I loved Julia and Noah. But the investment in AMC was NEVER as strong as what I’d had with Days when Steve and Kayla were on. And there was never, ever, on any soap, another Steve and Kayla.
As the kids grew the soaps turned off. Life became busy. I started working. Years later I would have to get 2 full time jobs as now a divorced mother of 2 kids. So naturally soaps were out of the picture.
Last year, February 2006, I was home one day. Feeling nostalgic of those easy days in the 80’s. Missing my sister who now lives a thousand miles away. I wanted to recapture that feeling, relive those simple days of rushing home from school, turning on the TV and eating microwave popcorn as I waited with anticipation for Steve and Kayla to reach their next big milestone. There is a part of me that knows I will never feel that way about Days ever again, but I knew so much of the history of Days, and had once loved it so much. So I started watching again. At first I flipped between AMC and Days, (which was tricky cause they are on at the same time) but realized AMC was now focused on characters that weren’t even on when I watched 10 years before. SORAS had done its number on AMC. It had on Days as well, but at least there were people I recognized. (Though imagine my surprise when I found out Chris Kostichek was Roman and Adrienne was Bonnie, that would take MONTHS for me to adjust to.) Hope was putting in an OUTSTANDING performance as a grieving mother who’s just lost her child. And between the nostalgia and the characters I once loved, Days won out to AMC. Though it became a chore everyday to watch Days and some of the best episodes are the ones that were so boring I fell asleep watching, I was trying. I wanted to love these characters, as I once loved Steve and Kayla back in the 80’s.
It was then (March), that I decided to start a website for Steve and Kayla. I went on the Internet and searched for clips of the old couple. I didn’t have any of the tapes I used to have, my sister took some, we recorded over most (gasp!), and some were just lost in 20 years of moves between my parents, my sister and me. I found a few clips. The wedding on the yacht, Christmas clips, but that was about it. I couldn’t believe with all the websites out there devoted to Bo and Hope, John and Marlena, Shawn and Belle, etc, that there were so few devoted to Steve and Kayla. I found Liz’s Stephen Nichols and Mary Beth Evans site and that became my gospel for a while. It was there that I found Cindy who does my DVDs. And it was also Liz who inspired me to start my own website, A Patch of Sweetness, and give someone else who was looking for a straw from their past something to sink their teeth into. It started small, and I was ecstatic when I got more then 20 hits a month.
Then the announcement came. I remember it well. Late April. I went to New Salem; a place I’d come accustomed to going where I felt comfortable and really like the people, and read THE ANNOUNCEMENT. My S&K were going to be gracing my screen once again. There was so much apprehension on my part. What had happened to Days over the past 20 years? Bo and Hope split up. Some dude who used to be Roman was now a psycho who was trying to kill Marlena. The exact same storyline from 10 years ago was being relived between Carrie/Austin/Sami/Lucas. I was scared my couple would return and things would be a mess for them. I was ecstatic at the same time. Where part of me wanted Steve to remain dead, leave that love story in the past and don’t drag it out, I’ll admit there was a part of me that was so excited. I hadn’t been this excited about Days since Steve and Kayla were on. It was my nostalgia. And, once again, that June I waiting over a weekend, with baited breath, not able to stand it, to see my couple on my television again on Monday.
And the rest was history. A Patch of Sweetness now gets over 500 hits a day! What started out as a small thing, only a few sections, has ballooned. I’m so proud of my website, but really, it would never be what it is if it weren’t for the great fans of S&K. We really are a rare bunch.
Thanks. It’s because of you that A Patch of Sweetness is what it is!
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