Dress as your favorite L'il
Abner character and prizes will be awarded to the best (two, three - however
many) look-alike characters. Pick your favorite character and let's turn the
square dance center into Dogpatch USA!!
Go here
for more info about Sadie Hawkins and L'il Abner. On the "Dogpatch USA" tab at
the bottom of this site, there's a photo of a group of characters (not all, but
several -- Sadie Hawkins and L'il Abner pictured above).
What is Sadie
Hawkins Day? Sadie Hawkins Day is an American folk event which made its debut
in Al Capp's L'il Abner strip November 15, 1937. Sadie Hawkins was "the
homeliest gal in the hills" who grew tired of waiting for the fellows to come a
courtin'. Her father, Hekzebiah Hawkins, a prominent resident of Dogpatch, was
even more worried about Sadie living at home for the rest of his life, so he
decreed the first annual Sadie Hawkins Day, a foot race in which the unmarried
gals pursued the town's bachelors, with matrimony the consequence. By the late
1930's the event had swept the nation and had a life of its own. Life magazine
reported over 200 colleges holding Sadie Hawkins Day events in 1939, only two
years after its inception. It became a women-empowering rite at high schools
and college campuses, long before the modern feminist movement gained
prominence. The basis of Sadie Hawkins Day is that women and girls take the
initiative in inviting the man or boy of their choice out on a date, typically
to a dance attended by other bachelors and their aggressive dates. When Al Capp
created the event, it was not his intention to have the event occur annually on
a specific date because, it inhibited his freewheeling plotting. However, due
to its enormous popularity and the numerous fan letters Capp received, the
event became an annual event in the strip during the month of November, lasting
the past four decades.
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