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Friday, February 28, 2014

31 YEARS AGO TODAY......A SAD DAY IN TELEVISION HISTORY with a Michigan Connection.......Sighhhhhh


I am much too sentimental when it comes to the end of a beloved television series...

I've always loved the "final episode" of most shows.... I usually watch them over and over...reassuring myself that life always goes on..and it does.

Television series never last but the memories seem immortal...

31 years ago on this date A sad day in history M*A*S*H Final Episode Feb. 28th, 1983 : M*A*S*H, a series about the staff of an Army hospital during the Korean War entitled ( Goodbye, Farewell and Amen ) became the most-watched television episode in U.S. history, with viewer estimates at 106 million Americans.

I especially loved this series because of it's "Michigan Connection".

That connection being that Harry Morgan, the beloved Col. Sherman Potter, called Michigan home.

Morgan was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1915, the son of Hannah and Henry Bratsberg, who were of Swedish and Norwegian ancestry. The name change by Harry is a story in itself...check it out on-line.

Morgan grew up in Muskegon, Michigan, and graduated from Muskegon High School in 1933, where he achieved distinction as a statewide debating champion. He originally aspired to a J.D. degree, but began acting while a junior at the University of Chicago in

I remember my earliest recollection of Mr. Morgan as he portrayed another beloved character Officer Bill Gannon in the original Dragnet series with Jack Web...

With a nostalgic tear in my eye here's the final scenes of M*A*S*H that featured Michigander Harry Morgan on this Day 31 years ago....