Who could have dreamed?

[scarfman]

Last night I was out with some friends and I saw a M*A*S*H episode that I'd never seen before.

Now, even those of you who've only known me through this journal (if any), think about that. A M*A*S*H episode. That I'd never seen before.

M*A*S*H was what got me through adolescence, the way most boys latch onto cars or sports, or most geeks latch onto Star Trek (Star Trek was one of mine too, second after M*A*S*H). (And there are sure worse things to be fanatical about in adolesence, if you want to go on to create humor on a schedule, than something Larry Gelbart spent four years on.)

I say I saw it but there was a lot going on and I didn't get to pay it much attention. It was a later episode, but not too late because Radar was in it (Radar's departure is for me when the show completed the last few degrees of the arc over the marine predator). It was something about a football game, or a football season, like the subplot about the World Series in the episode that spans 1951. And the very end is one character pleading with a group of others that surely despite all the recent acrimony things can go back to the way they were before, and Radar - the paragon of invulnerable innocence - says, "No. No, it can't."

I thought this was great. First of all, dude, a M*A*S*H episode I'd never seen before. Second, even though I'd caught the end I hadn't seen most of it; and it's not the destination, it's the journey. After all these years, I had another M*A*S*H episode out there somewhere waiting for me. Fantastic.

And then I woke up.