Been checking your site out for a while now and it's astounding! Going so deep into this stuff brought out an early childhood memory that I had forgotten about, prob cuz I obsessed over finding all my other kindertrauma's years ago and found em all! So asking this as a serious long shot, cuz the scene I will describe to you was on a soap opera, and considering this had to be 1980-1982…well I just can't imagine it exists anywhere or sticks out in anyone's memory.
But here it is, an older man in his older man den is sitting down drinking (probably brandy or whatever) and staring longingly into the roaring fireplace. Superimposed on the fireplace is the image of little girl on a swing, laughing. This was obv supposed to be some memory that has brought upon a mournful feeling in the guy. I don't know if she was dead, missing, or what, but it creeped me out like crazy! I think I remember this was right before an add break and I remember hearing either "Nadia's theme" from Young and the Restless, or something like it, adding to the creepy factor. But it could have been another soap. I was only like 4 years old, so this is very foggy in the detail department. I've looked at some soap fan sites to see if I could find something in the plot lines of those years to match, but with no luck. Maybe? Somebody out there? Anybody?
My mom is a big Y&R fan – I'll check with her. The soaps have provided a good bit of shocks over the years – I remember a storyline from Guiding Light during that time period that involved a plane crash in the Caribbean. There was a scene that freaked me out where the pilot was covered in blood – pretty traumatizing for '80s daytime fare!
Here is an update from Dan C….
I know this is very anticlimactic and maybe not even worth mentioning, but when I saw the recent Name that Trauma about the giant Raggedy Ann doll on Another World, I realized that my recent Name that Trauma was not the Young and the Restless, but most certainly Another World. I proceeded to watch every episode from late 79-82 that I could find on youtube convinced that it must have something to do with the Mac Cory/Rachel Cory story line, even finding a scene where Mac (I recognized him and that fireplace from my memory) sobbed, with the fireplace in the foreground. But since this was an hourlong soap on 5 days a week, there were many gaping holes unaccounted for youtube, so I consider it a partially successful "find" as I at least know (I think) what the origin of girl in the fireplace was….felt sooooooo close.