Eventually, I will have to gird myself and write something substantive about the fast-approaching end of As the World Turns. But with absolutely nothing to anticipate between now and September 17th – I understand exactly what some posters mean when they ask, “Is it September yet?” – all I can muster right now is an observation – and a prediction.

From the time she first appeared in Oakdale in 2008, I’ve had absolutely no interest in the character of Liberty Ciccone – not when she lost her virginity to, then married Parker Synder (yes, yes I know Parker’s Hal’s son – should be Munson), not even the drama of her pregnancy (and it’s predictable, anti-climatic miscarriage) followed by the loss of her father moved me. And, sad to say, Liberty’s struggle with leukemia has left me cold. But since Sarah Wilson took over from Meredith Hagner earlier this year, I finally realized that there was something I was looking forward to seeing – NuLiberty’s (as she’s known on the boards) real hair.

When Wilson took over the role in mid-March, Liberty was in isolation for her cancer treatment, and had lost her hair (in striking contrast to little Johnny Donovan, whose bone marrow transplant seemed to be an out-patient procedure). So Wilson’s hair was covered by a dark red knit cap (ugly is a charitable description) and it occurred to me that for the end of the show she would take off the hat – Ta Da! – and viewers’ patience would be rewarded.

But I underestimated the storytellers at ATWT. A couple of weeks ago, the ugly hat was replaced by a wig that had one poster wondering about the dead animal on the top of Liberty’s head. I was thinking maybe the wig had been thrown away by one of the Orthodox Jewish ladies in the Midwood Brooklyn neighborhood where ATWT tapes and picked up by some thrifty crew member. But, on the bright side, it does represent some movement in the story – ugly hat to bad wig to seeing a pretty young actress’s real hair by September 17th.

It’s a sad commentary that as ATWT heads into the home stretch of its 54-year run – the final tape date is late June – that the only thing I can write about it is hair.

© 2010 Lynn Liccardo 

Limited Licensing: I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the Creative Commons Attribution license, granting distribution of my copyrighted work without making changes, with mandatory attribution to Lynn Liccardo and for non-commercial purposes only. Lynn Liccardo