M*A*S*H Goes to San Francisco by Richard Hooker & William E. Butterworth

Author:Richard Hooker & William E. Butterworth [Hooker, Richard & Butterworth, William E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Humor, Historical Fiction, War, Comedy, Medical, Media Tie-In, Tv, Movie, United States, Military
ISBN: 9780722146453
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1976-11-01T21:14:12+00:00

Chapter Eight

It did not go quite as smoothly as the Reverend Mother Emeritus had believed it would. From the very first, Barbara Ann Miller was anything but a typical anonymous student nurse.

When the GILIAFCC, Inc., pilgrims returned to the Crescent City, bringing Barbara Ann with them, they were greeted by members of the news media—not particularly because their return was of such earth-shaking importance, but because Colonel Beauregard C. Beaucoupmots, publisher of the New Orleans Picaroon-Statesman and owner of WOOM-TV (“The Voice of the Cradle of the Confederacy”), was one of the Reverend Mother Emeritus’ greatest admirers.

His admiration was not for her theological achievements nor for her medical skills. Colonel Beauregard Beaucoupmots was enamored of the lady he called “Miss Margaret” as a lady. He had first encountered her at the final rites of the Blessed Brother Buck. When she had spread her arms wide in a final gesture to the mourners, a strong gust of wind from Lake Ponchartrain had pressed her gown tightly against her body. The colonel hadn’t seen such an exciting sight since he was fourteen, when his father had taken him to see Sally Rand and her Dance of the Bubbles at the New York World’s Fair of 1939-40. As soon as what he considered to be a decent interval had passed (that is to say, the next day), he had proposed marriage. Upon rejection, he had repeated the offer to take her as his bride on the average of once every eighteen hours ever since, and showed no signs of discouragement whatever.

If getting publicity for either the GILIAFCC, Inc. (which organization the colonel referred to privately as “Miss Margaret’s faggots”), or the Ms. Prudence MacDonald Memorial School of Nursing was the way to Miss Margaret’s heart, then the Picaroon-Statesman and WOOM-TV were at her service.

Although there had been at first some resistance from the editor about such round-the-clock coverage of the GILIAFCC, Inc., it had soon passed. The editor learned that his readers were far more interested in reading about the day-to-day undertakings of the GILIAFCC, Inc., membership than they were in, for example, the things columnists Evans and Novak wrote about. Evans and Novak seldom provided a smile, much less hysterical laughter.

And so, when the door of the airplane opened, and the Reverend Mother Emeritus emerged to raise her shepherd’s crook and offer a blessing to the inhabitants of the Crescent City, the ladies and gentlemen of the print and electronic media were on hand. Their cameras saw, and their sharp little pencils recorded, the new addition to the Reverend Mother Emeritus’ entourage.

In the mistaken belief that Miss Barbara Ann Miller was a member of the GILIAFCC, Inc., faithful, four reporters, two cameramen, and the anchorman of the seven-thirty news—none of whom had been inside a church in a decade—showed up that same day at the International Headquarters Temple begging for admission.

When the photograph showing Miss Barbara Ann Miller standing behind the Reverend Mother Emeritus was printed in the evening edition of the

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