Slide on the Ice

Allen Arbus, the actor who played Dr. Sidney Freedman and personified good psychiatry in the madness of war, passed away this week. The last words spoken by Dr. Freedman as the Korean War was winding down to a cease fire were: “You know, I told you people something a long time ago, and it's just as pertinent today as it was then. Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice - pull down your pants and slide on the ice.”

I remember Sidney’s exit clearly. He was one of my favorite, and certainly the most underutilized characters on M*A*S*H, but the reason I remember it was that just over 30 years ago when Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen aired, I was like a the rest of a huge audience in front of the television. I HAD to be in front of the television, because VCRs were too expensive to afford for me and my (then) bride in 1983.

To make matters worse for Irene, she couldn’t be in front of the television. She was a full-time student, with a full-time job, and Monday nights were her regular closing nights at the store. When she got home, she conveyed that at exactly 30 minutes before the episode was airing, the entire mall, not just her store, the entire mall, emptied out. She could have watched a small TV in the back room, if we could have found one that somehow got reception with rabbit ears in the cavernous back areas of Briarwood Mall.

Fortunately, ne of our friend’s fathers owned an appliance store, and he recorded the show for Irene on a VCR in his store. He even stayed in the store to make sure it recorded properly since VCRs weren’t the most reliable technology. Still, Irene had to wait until we found a way to visit friends with a VCR in their home. “Hi, how are you doing? Mind if we use your VCR for 2-1/2 hours?”

That was thirty years ago. Today, I can’t walk into an elevator in my office building without having a TV screen in front of my face, and I can stream television shows on my phone. VCRs are an obsolete technology.

But what isn’t obsolete is the humanity that one man brought to one character, that my mental VCR will always have on tape.