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Guiding Light," a daytime drama -- aka soap opera -- fell like so many others, the victim of declining ratings and revenue. If you walked into a college student union in, oh say, the late 1970s or 1980s, you'd find female and male students alike glued to the TVs to follow the antics of Luke Spencer and Laura Webber on "General Hospital" or Erica on "All My Children" or Dorian on "One Life to Live."

72 years signed off for the last time.

It began in the days of radio and transitioned to television. But "Guiding Light," a daytime drama -- aka soap opera -- fell like so many others, the victim of declining ratings and revenue. It was not just the longest-running soap opera in history, but the longest running drama in general.

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It wasn't the first long-standing soap opera to leave the airwaves: "The Edge of Night," "Search for Tomorrow," "Another World" and "Love of Life" were mainstays for years before finally losing steam.

Despite 40-plus years of opportunity, I'd never seen "Guiding Light." It was one of those CBS soaps. I was never interested in the CBS soaps because my heart belonged to the ABC soap triumvirate -- "All My Children," "One Life to Live" and "General Hospital."

Those three? Oh, there was a time that I followed their every story line.

Erica Kane? Hated her. Loved her. Wished she would stop getting married.

Luke and Laura? Hated them. Loved them. Wished they would come back.

Dorian Lord? Hated her. Hated her. Hated her.

Even if you never watched a soap opera, you almost certainly know who Erica Kane and Luke and Laura are. Dorian? Her you might not be so familiar with, but you know the others because they became pop-culture phenomenons.

Sure, for a long time, soap operas straddled the line between beloved and much-maligned, depending on your perspective. Men, for the most part, would not be caught dead watching a soap. Many women, though, especially women who stayed at home all day, got the attraction big time.

Then came the era -- can you say Luke and Laura? -- when soap operas were all the rage.

If you walked into a college student union in, oh say, the late 1970s or 1980s, you'd find female and male students alike glued to the TVs to follow the antics of Luke Spencer and Laura Webber on "General Hospital" or Erica on "All My Children" or Dorian on "One Life to Live."

Soap operas were big -- HUGE. They made the covers of major magazines like People and Newsweek. Folks rushed home on their lunch hours to catch the day's plotlines. When VCRs emerged, they could stop rushing home and simply set the recorders to tape their favorites.

I had an editor at an afternoon newspaper in the 1980s whose sole impetus for beating the early afternoon deadline was so he could go home for lunch to catch "One Life to Live."

OK, so it wasn't his sole impetus, but it certainly seemed like his personal daily reward for getting the paper out on time.

I was hooked for decades on ABC's big-three soaps. It's how I spent my summer vacations when I was a little girl. And staying home sick from school -- cough, cough, "Mom, my throat's really sore ... no really, it's buuuuurning" -- carried the added benefit of being able to stretch out on the couch all day and catch up on the action.

Luckily, by the time I entered the big-girl work force, those dandy VCRs allowed me to wallow in the crazy plots and sappy love stories without having to feign illness.

And the plots could be seriously crazy: Split personalities, returns from the dead, amnesias, faked amnesias, ghosts, baby switches, faked pregnancies, mob ties.

And don't even get me started on "GH's" Ice Princess story line and the carbonic snow that threatened the very planet we live on. (No, I did not just make that up.)

But I ran out of free time at some point. I guess I ran out of interest, too. I haven't regularly watched a soap opera in years.

OK, so I did watch "General Hospital" a couple of times in the past few years when I read favorite old characters were coming back for short-lived stints.

Yes, I will hang my head in shame and admit it: I TiVo'd Rick Springfield's return as Noah Drake.

I'll pause here for the mockery to pass ...

Today, soap operas, seemingly, have not so much gone full-circle back to much-maligned, but have kind of dropped off the sphere altogether.

No one seems to talk about them one way or another anymore. They went from being housewife time-wasters to all-the-rage to, well, nonfactors.

Which is why they're being cancelled, one would suppose.

Funny, even though I don't watch them anymore, it makes me sad to think that the day might come when "AMC," "OLTL" or "GH" won't be there to keep me occupied on a sick day.

Hey, boss, I feel a sore throat coming on.