Get Ready, Ladies: Leap Day Is Also Sadie Hawkins Day (From Irish Tradition to Li'l Abner)

Time ^ | 02/19/2012 | MELISSA LOCKER |

[Kid Shelleen]

--snip-- As for Sadie Hawkins, she hit the U.S. pop cultural shores back in 1937, when Sadie Hawkins Day was introduced in pen and ink in Al Capp’s classic comic strip Li’l Abner. In the comic, Sadie Hawkins was a spinster at the age of 35, so her father set up a race for local bachelors. Whoever Sadie caught was going to be her husband. The town, and the reading audience, loved the idea and the race became an annual fixture of the comic strip, and soon spread into real-life society, spawning Sadie Hawkins Day dances.

[RitaOK]

We use to celebrate Sadie Hawkins day in highschool with a sock hop on the gymnasium floor, to which the girls invited the guys.

A perfect moniker—sock hop. What fun we had!

[Red_Devil 232]

It is really Libby Glass

[Kid Shelleen]

Fun times indeed.
Do you remember the Li'l Abner comic strip or movie ???

[fkabuckeyesrule]

Well it looks like I picked a bad time to catch the flu.

[RitaOK]

Well, of course I do remember Li’l Abner, but was much more into chick comics; like what’shisname and Betty, and their couple friends;”Sheena, Queen of the Jungle” comics!

LOL! Let’s watch it! We are starting to date ourselves, and in public!

[Kid Shelleen]

but it was Daisy Mae (Leslie Parrish) that caught Li’l Abner

[BykrBayb]

No need to date yourself on Sadie Hawkins Day. ; )

[RitaOK]

“No need to date yourself on Sadie Hawkins Day. ; )”

LOL! I worked on that sentence before sending, wondering if the ambiguity would borrow trouble. LOL! :) Sure enough, I found “trouble”! Ha!

Thanks, Rita.

[BykrBayb]

It’s easy to find trouble here. Nobody’s safe! LOL

[RitaOK]

Truer words were never spoken! :D

[Red_Devil 232]

Yeah, but if it had been Daisy Mae instead of Libby Glass who asked me to be her date to a Sadie Hawkins Day dance - My First date ever! I would never have had arguments with my Mother whether I was going or not!

[Dr. Sivana]

For the record, according Al Capp, Sadie Hawkins Day is not at any fixed day on the calendar, but occurred whenever he said it occurred.

FR trivia: In his youth, BlackElk was Al Capp’s chauffeur. Capp was a real character.

[mylife]

Years after High school, after I got out of Boot Camp, a gal asked me If I wanted a date and it wasn’t even Sadie Hawkins Day!
This Midwestern boy was shocked!

[JoeFromSidney]

Thanks for the reminder. I haven't even thought about Sadie Hawkins day in years. I well remember the Li'l Abner comic strip. I also remember being asked for a Sadie Hawkins Day date by a young lady from the Catholic Young People's Club in Dayton. I liked her enough that I asked her out several more times, but we broke up and I ended up marrying someone else.