Plot A: The doctors want to put a cement floor in the operating room, to cut down on the bacteria that breeds on the wooden floors. The "M" in M*A*S*H standing for Mobile, however, no one wants them to do it, and they are forced to turn to Klinger to arrange matters for them.
Plot B: A wounded Italian soldier, having received a "Dear Giovanni" letter, rebounds onto Margaret.

(Sorry, I was listing the synopses in the order they are in my book.)

Plot: Hawkeye's friend, an elementary school teacher, asks her students to write letters to the personnel at the 4077th. Everyone forgets to be depressed by the steady rainfall as they answer the letters. Everyone, that is, except Hawkeye, who must deal with a little boy whose older brother was wounded, healed, and sent back to the front--this time to die.

Is there anyone out there with an uncut version of this? Did Klinger answer a letter?

Father Mulcahy has saved several lives, not just one drunken pooch, however cute.

(That dog really gets around! He's the same one that got killed after Margaret had been feeding him, and he was in Klinger's basket when he was playing "Dorothy.")

I loved Charles' response to the gift of a birch leaf.

Klinger did get a letter, but I can't for the life of me remember what his letter said.

Obviously, the alcoholic dog was owned by a G.I. I can't imagine a South Korean naming a dog "Irving".

B.J.'s letter involves a lawyer sent to the 4077th to replace Charles (who's attending a seminar). Seems to me calling for a replacement doctor is an extreme rarity. It doesn't look like Hawkeye and Trapper were replaced when they went to Tokyo for a seminar in "The Consultant". As a matter of fact, only when Potter had the mumps did the 4077th look for a replacement surgeon.

Did anyone witness "Hoops" Potter make 32 free throws in a row or is the camp just taking the Colonel's word for it?

One question that occured to me while rewatching this ep - Why does Hawkeye give letters only to the officers (and Klinger?) It looked like there were enough letters that almost everyone in camp could have gotten one. Surely the enlisted men were bored and would have enjoyed respoding to the kids. (I know. The others aren't the stars of the show. But surely Kellye, Igor or Rizzo could have been given one.)

I personally would have loved to have seen this episode be one that gave insite into some of the non-stars...not to mention who much I would love to hear Rizzo teach an elementary school student about how to run a floating craps game :o)

I seem to remember in one episode it being mentioned that Igor doesn't know how to read, so that would leave him out, but you're right about the others.

I finally found out about Klinger's letter! Apparently the writer had been asking about soldiers' pay. Klinger started off by saying that the writer probably got more allowance from his (?) father than Klinger got pay, which was why Klinger was constantly on the lookout for money-making schemes. The flashback shows Klinger and Col. Potter looking at two chinchillas in a cage. Chinchillas, of course, are as well known for their expensive fur as they are for their reproductive proclivities. Charles spoils things by coming along, glancing at the chinchillas, and informing Klinger that, rather than having Romeo and Juliet Chinchilla, he has Romeo and Mercutio--both chinchillas are male. Charles has worked with enough laboratory rodents to be certain of the identification.

I do wonder--what exactly was it in the bowl that Irving drank so eagerly? Or was it that they had let poor Leo (the dog actor's real name) get tremendously thirsty before filming his scene?

Margaret's letter was the one that always brings tears to my eyes as I watch her recollection--she does indeed, get very close to some of her patients, particularly one who spoke eagerly to her of his coming marriage and what he hoped to accomplish--not knowing that his liver was gone and that he would be dead within hours.

Something I noticed about Charles--at the beginning, he refused to take any letters at all. Hawkeye then told the rest that the rule was that they had to answer all the letters that they had taken. Charles answered one letter by snatching it out of B.J.'s hand--the child had assumed that the doctors were really living the fun life, and Charles was eager to dissuade him. However...we later see Charles answering at least two more letters. Who gave them to him? The uncut version does not say. Did he take over the rest of Hawkeye's letters, while Hawkeye was agonizing over the one?

Watch "Hoops" Potter in action--when the scene cuts to him surrounded by a cheering crowd, he throws a shot that we, the audience, don't actually see go into the basket. The ball comes back instantly, which may indicate that it didn't really go in, because there was no time for it to snag into the netting and then drop. (We don't hear the swish, either.)

With 500 letters coming in the next installment, perhaps Hawkeye will be kind and distribute some of them to the other people who also work at M*A*S*H 4077, rather than hogging them all for a handful of people. This actually would have been a good episode to show a little depth to one or more of the secondary characters--Kellye, Igor, or Rizzo, for example.

Oops. Obviously, I wasn't the only one to think that the secondary characters should have been used here.

Continuing on the theme of the lesser members of camp not getting any of the letters...It's interesting that apparently no one in the Mess Tent overheard or saw Pierce give away the letters to the others of the main cast. If they did, you'd think at least one of them would ask to be let in on the fun.

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I really buy into the cure for Irving. I mean, if the dog was a "rummy", then letting him drink all he wants should just fuel his alcoholism, shouldn't it? I mean, how many people shy away from alcohol just because they drink 'til they get sick and have a hangover later?

Where'd did Father Mulcahy get the paper he used to reply to Stacy, his correspondent? Did he just happen to have a sheet of paper with him or was he using Stacy's letter? Or did he just go back to his tent and get the piece of paper?

Just saying - but when he first gave out the letters, Hawkeye did lay out some ground rules. One of which was no stealing someone else's letter. Yet, Winchester, when he first starts writing his responses, did just that - stole one of Hunnicutt's letters. I'm surprised neither Hawkeye nor B.J. made a comment about it.

Given how small Crabapple Cove is supposed to be, I wonder if Hawkeye knew Ronnie Hawkins or his brother, Keith (the one who was wounded, patched up by surgeons only to be killed in combat later)? There's no indication that Pierce knew them, but if he did, it would obviously make his reply all the harder to write. (This ep states that there are only 400 people in Crabapple Cove.)

In the first scene in the Swamp, there's a hole in the roof of the tent by B.J. This leak seems to have disappeared in subsequent scenes.

When Hawkeye goes to Father Mulcahy about the Ronnie Hawkins letter, the Padre reads one from a Mary Collins. In the letter, the little girl says, "Teacher is making use write" the letters. "Teacher"? Wouldn't you think Mary Collins would have called her teacher "Mrs (or Miss) Clark"? (At the start of the ep, we're told the teacher's name is Amy Clark.) Or even refer to her as "the teacher"? "Teacher" just doesn't sound quite right.

Regarding Irving's cure--it's quite possible that it would work. Remember, you can't judge a dog's reactions by human standards. As Father Mulcahy said, "If only people had the horse sense dogs have." (More or less.)