"Attention all personnel, INCOMING WOUNDED!"

Last night the Rockingham Community College Foundation held its annual fundraising dinner at Reidsville Country Club. Every year it's a different theme and this time it was the television series M*A*S*H. It also serves as an acronym for More Academic and Scholarship Help. Anyway, they went totally all-out in doing a M*A*S*H theme: right down to having a real jeep, the signpost, Klinger's female wardrobe, the Swamp (complete with still) and "Rosie's Bar" (serving real booze!)...

To add further atmosphere, several members of the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County volunteered to be in costume as various characters from the show. We had Mike Davis as Hawkeye and Eric Smith as Trapper (each carrying around a martini glass), Tyler Walker as Klinger (who went through three costume changes including a wedding dress), and Tanya Rimmer Willis as Hotlips.

And as Corporal "Radar" O'Reilly, it's Yours Truly!

And they even set up Radar's desk complete with period typewriter and radio gear!

We all had a lot of fun helping with a great cause. Although it's now twenty-four hours later and my throat is still a tad sore from all that running around screaming "INCOMING WOUNDED!" :-)

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Harry Morgan has passed away

The sad news is coming out this afternoon that Harry Morgan, the already prolific actor before finding eternal fame on two of television's most classic series - as Bill Gannon on Dragnet and then Col. Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H - has passed away at the age of 96.

This guy shined in everything that he was in, during a career that stretched all the way back to 1942. The following year he appeared in The Ox-Bow Incident, quite a controversial film for its time. Morgan followed that up with roles in The Glenn Miller Story and Inherit the Wind. In 1962's How the West Was Won he played General Ulysses Grant. And those were just a few of movies that Morgan appeared in (along with quite a few comedies).

It was a Bill Gannon, alongside Jack Webb in Dragnet, that would have most cemented Morgan's place in entertainment history. But then he did Col. Potter in M*A*S*H: a role for which he earned an Emmy. And yeah I grew up watching M*A*S*H and I liked Hawkeye and Klinger and the rest... but for some reason Potter was even more the heart and soul of that show. A model Army officer and field surgeon, but with crack wit and profound wisdom. Not to mention some of the best lines of the entire show: "Horse feathers!" etc. And I also remember him in that series of "Incident" television movies that he made with Walter Matthau.

Rest in peace, Mr. Morgan. And thanks for the many years of good drama and great laughs.

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