As The World Turns

 

For a work-related golf outing, I was recently paired up with an older gentleman who was 10 years retired from working in city government but still civically active and relationally connected. Having journeyed with other colleagues his age, as they wind down their formal careers and explore various levels of staying engaged, I asked him if it was his preference to stay in the loop, and if it was harder to do so now that he wasn't going into the office every day. 

His answer was a funny and insightful one. He asked me if I'd ever watched soap operas as a kid, and I told him that my mom and her sister would watch "As the World Turns," so there were probably some points in my childhood where I followed along and got to know the characters and plot lines. He responded that my answer proved his point. In his mind, Philly is a like a soap opera. There are main characters and central plot lines that carry over multiple seasons. And, even when new characters and plot lines are introduced, it doesn't take look for you to figure them out, if you've been watching for long enough. 

Sure enough, I remember returning to "As the World Turns" many years after my childhood, perhaps when I was home from college one summer and my mom or my aunt had it on the TV. And it is correct that within a single episode, even if you don't recognize characters or follow what's going on at first, by the end of the episode you've made the appropriate connections to follow along. Because people, even if new, play a certain role, and plot lines, even if new, are birthed out of older and more long-standing plot lines.

And so it is that this older gentleman has been able, 10 years out from quitting his day job, to either know what's going on in town or quickly figure it out. I don't know that I'm as savvy as he is, but I suspect many of us could also follow along reasonably well even if we were officially out of the loop for a bit. I guess that's how soap operas, and big cities, work.