Anecdotes From the Diary of A Wind At My Back Fan: Part 1, How it all began

I came across this diary of a Wind at My Back fan while cleaning the attic to my new house. I revised it for the post, but most of it is straight from the diary of R.C. I am writing it as if she was, so that it was easier to tell!

~Anecdotes From the Diary of A Wind At My Back Fan: Part 1, How it all began~

~I First Heard Of WaMB~

2010! It was a great year! I was 13 at the time and so full of spirit! I was very much a Sci-Fi geek and I loved things like Star Trek and Star Wars ( I still love Star Wars) and anything with action. My idea of a perfect night was watching an episode of "Dragnet" and an episode of "The Incredible Hulk" on a classic TV channel that we had and then watching an episode of Star Trek on one of my dvds. So when my friends, Honey and Toppy (This is actually her code name for them in the diary, not to be confused with the real Honey and Toppy), wanted me to watch this show called "Wind at My Back" at 5, didn't want to. You see, at the time I was really getting in to the police show "Dragnet" and that was also at 5. I had heard of old shows on INSP because I had watched "Highway to Heaven" there once or twice. I didn't think I was prepared to leave "Dragnet" until...

~Why I Started To Watch WaMB~ 

I was watching "Highway to Heaven" one night, when a commercial came on saying that this "Wind at My Back" was starting over from episode #1. After some brief thoughts, I made up my mind, and said to Mom "I'm going to try that show on Thursday, when it starts over again. Honey and Toppy rave about it like I rave about Star Trek, so it must be good!

~Thursday Rolls Around...~

...and I sit myself in my favorite chair and put on channel 18 (channel we get INSP on). With in seconds, "Four Walls and a Roof part 1 was rolling across the screen. I must say that, at first, I was quite bored by Grace. ~laughs~. I actually said to my mom, "See that girl? ( I didn't realize Grace was an adult at that point!  ) She needs to man up to her Mother and just make the stupid sandwiches!" I was, actually, at first, attracted to Honey's character, because she was strong and knew what was right and stood for it.

~The Bee Scene, and How It Could Have Ruined My Life~

All was well and good until the bee scene. Mom just happened to have sat down right before that part, and saw the whole dang thing. She was horrified and wanted me to turn off the TV saying that it was an awful show to kill off the father. The only thing that saved me at the time was the fact that Mom had agreed that since my best friends had recommended it, I could watch the whole first episode from beginning to end. I reminded her of this and she calmed down quite a bit, but not for long...

~How May Could Have Ruined My Life~ 

We watched on, and we finally get to the part where Honey is standing in the hall, crying, and May comes around the corner and "gives it to her" as my brother would say. Now, my mom (because she is a mom, she says) takes offence when TV shows portray one of the mothers as a bad character (she hates Cinderella, if you get my meaning), and at this point, I thought she was going to blow up. She looked at me with a look I have only seen once, then, and said "That woman right there is an absolute witch!" This statement scared me. You see, while mom was paying attention to how bad the bee scene was and how evil May was to Honey, I was captivated by the drama of it all, and was actually enjoying myself (and crying, something I had never done with Star Trek. I was lucky mom didn't see me though, she would have thought I was upset by the show and have turned it off then and there, promise or no promise.), and I know when mom gives a look I have never seen, it's not a good sign.

~How The End Saved Me~ 

It's the end of the show by now and I watch the scene where Honey leaves and Fat chases the bus. At this point, Mom says to me, in a very inquiring voice, "So, did you enjoy that?" I had been on the earth for 13 years, so I knew what mom was getting at. If I said absolutely anything but that I loved it, I would never see the show again, because apparently, mom was not thrilled with it. To tell truth, I wasn't at that point either. But I acted like it was the best thing on earth, because I thought the show had potential.

~One Day Later...~

Pretty soon it's 5 again and, I was right. Since I acted thrilled the night before, mom let me watch "Wind at My Back" again. "Four Walls and A Roof part 2" started promptly and I must say, This episode really put "the first nail in coffin" for me to become a Grace fanatic. I laughed so hard when she started to hiccup that I thought I might start hiccuping myself! I actually said to my Mom "Hey Ma! That Grace Girl (not to sound Anne-ish) is so nervous she's hiccuping her head off! Hah! Her mother is going crazy because of it!" 

~The Scene That Mom Missed (Thank God)~ 

Mom had to go do something (didn't write what it was in my diary) and I was left alone with dad to watch the end half of the of the episode. Thank God! You see, my dad was a Marine, so nothing bloody or anything on TV bothers him because he saw the real thing in Vietnam, so when Hub cuts his leg, dad was like "so, when does this get exciting?" If mom had been there, I swear, that would have been the straw that broke the camels back!

~About a Month Later~ 

Sadly, because of a local Christmas Fair we work at, I missed a lot of the first season of the show because of setting up for taking down stuff for the fair and I sort of forgot about WaMB. If it hadn't been for my absolute best friend Honey nagging me, I probably would have never thought of it again. The first entry in My diary about WaMB after the fair says that I started watching it again at "the one where the mother and that teacher dude get married" but I think that I saw only the end half of that one and really started watching it religiously when I saw "Never Sleep Three in a Bed" and met Del, for he became my favorite character for a while. ( I only saw the very end of the one where they get married and didn't see Del in it at all)

~Del Sutton~ 

I have an entry in my diary that will spell it all out for you:

December 29, 2010
"Dear Diary,
Today I watched that "Wind at My Back" show again. They introduced a new character. His name is Del and he is really cute! He is Max's brother who is kind of ruff around the edges, but is interesting to watch. I thought I caught him making "goo goo eyes" at Grace. Maybe there is something in store for them later in the show! If there was I would watch it more often!"

Just so you know, I replaced all of the references (such as the teacher is what I use to call Max before I got his name in my head.) with there real names. The only real name I had in the whole entry was Del! 

~The Months Went By...~

...and I was had watched the show religiously since that episode, when WaMB it came to it's abrupt end in "Payback". It might have actually been a good thing that I wasn't a huge Grace fan yet (nope, I still wasn't) because it might have totally ruined my love for her. Ever since Cynthia had been replaced by Laura, my love for Honey had fallen dramatically ( no offence to Laura, but she is just notCynthia) and Del having left, I finally decided I was a Toppy fan in the end. 

~The Second Time Around~ 

I had loved the show so much that I decided would watch it again. So, not knowing how much I missed in season one, I started to re-watch. I was surprised at what I missed! I had no clue that many of the very best of WaMB had not been watched by me because of that Christmas fair. Here ia another full entry from my diary

February 17, 2011

"Dear Diary
I got the surprise of my life tonight night! I have been watching the Wind at My Back episodes that I missed thanks to The Fair. I saw how Grace learned to drive! It was so funny, I must have busted a gusset! May almost gets killed though. Now that I have seen how she is in the end, I kind of like her, though she is still kind of weird in episode one."

As you can see, I had already developed in fan-hood. I knew everybody's name at that point and I even quote Callie's "Bust a gusset" thing!

~Grace Bailey Becomes My All-Time-Favorite Character~ 

Here is how it happened. I saw "Aunt Grace's Wedding" for the first time! I laughed so hard, I cried, and I finally decided that Grace was my all-time-favorite character, as this quote proves:
"I never really liked Grace before. I didn't think she had enough guts. But now that I have seen this (Aunt Grace's Wedding), I realize that she was trying so hard to have guts, that every time she really did, It seemed, some how, fake. Watching this episode has made me think more about her. I think I am developing another fandom (such as the one I have had with Star Trek)!

~The End of This Story, But Just The Beginning Of Another~

This is the conclusion of "How I Became A WaMB Addict". If I get some good responses I will post part 2 of this story: "Anecdotes From the Diary of A Wind At My Back Fan: Part 2, Her Fandom Grows". I hope you enjoy!