Rich (17/26): The Progress of Love by Alice Munro.

After "World News Tonight" (we were Peter Jennings fans), we'd sometimes watch "M*A*S*H" instead of "Wheel of Fortune." It was always my last half-hour before I had to go upstairs and start my homework. It wasn't what I'd watch if I had tivo. Afterall, it was a quirky show with a crossdresser (Corporal Klinger), a few screwballs (Alan Alda and his co-star of the season), and a bitchy lady ("Hotlips" Houlihan). Hawkeye would be pulling a prank or fooling around with his distillation setup, Radar would be talking to his teddy bear, and Col. Potter would be keeping everyone in check. The surgery and E.R. could have easily been replaced by tulips and a garden; the insults and sarcasm were the focus of the show.

A little older, I started to watch M*A*S*H after my parents went to sleep. Every night, my father would go to bed at 11pm, and at 11:05pm, I would sneak downstairs and turn on the t.v. I had a choice of the local news or M*A*S*H. I'd pour myself a cup of milk and sit or lie in front of Hawkeye and Hunnicut. Every once in a rare while, the jokes would stop -- someone would get really hurt or wouldn't make it, and Hawkeye would remove his surgigal mask in frustration, turn away from the camera, and leave the operating room without a word. All those jokes and pranks were an elaborate act to camouflage the real grind of dealing with death on such an intimate and frequent basis. But, for that day, the curtain was dropped; the theater was closed. And that, more than seeing someone's arm get blown off by a mortar round, would help explain to me -- an audience who never knew hunger, never felt poverty, never experienced fear of death, and certainly never was in a battle with real casualties -- how horrible armed combat really was.

Alice Munro's collection of short stories is full of these moments of clarity. Unconditional love is not the Hollywood awakening from the dead to save a lover. Teenage innocence isn't rated-R and accompanied by a bucket of popcorn. But, these and other moments fall out of these pages like a forgotten photograph, hidden away.

What a lovely way to end my 2006 Three Sucker's Challenge.