Sadie Hawkins' Day

Sometimes I wonder if I am just turning into a sentimental old softy.

Today is Sadie Hawkins' Day. Sadie Hawkins was the Li'l Abner comic strip character who was always chasing men. She desperately wanted to marry, but never did catch one.

On Sadie Hawkins' Day, a proper young lady, who would otherwise do no such thing, is permitted to ask a young man out on a date or, if they have already been dating, to go ahead and propose.

Of course, now, the customs seem quaint or awful, but when I was a child I attended one school that made Sadie Hawkins' Day into a game day.

We would prepare for weeks. We wore clothes that would befit the Li'l Abner folk. We had a Marryin' Sam, who would perform weddings for a quarter. We had a Divorcin' Doris who would annul the same, if a boy got caught and forced to marry a girl he didn't like. We had a cardboard tubing jail, with people assigned to watch over it in shifts. (Cost a quarter to get out, or you just sat there for an hour.) We had food and chased each other over the playground, and some of the kids who had boyfriends/girlfriends, would marry and divorce over and over, seeing who could outsmart the other the most often. I believe the record was 7 marriages between one young couple, and he never caught up to her to get divorced the last time, because school was over for the day by then!

I did not particularly care for any of the young men in my age group who attended that school, but I did, for the fun of it, pretend for the day to be in hot pursuit of one young man. I kept him hopping, just to grin at watching him run off from me. For some perverse reason, I took particular delight in interfering with his attempts to sit and eat in peace, and kept him trapped in the restroom for a while.

A fond school memory.


Today is:

Actor's Day

Chuang Tzu's Day

Feronia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Festival for Juno, Minerva & Jupiter)

Guinness World Record Day

National Indian Pudding Day

Sadie Hawkins Day

Sheik Day

St. Abbo's Day

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini's Day (patron of hospital administrators, emigrants, immigrants)

St. Homobonus' Day (patron of garment workers, tailors)

St. Nicholas I's Day

St. Stanislaus Kostka's Day (patron of Poland, young people; against broken limbs, doubt, palpitations)

World Kindness Day


Birthdays Today:

Monique Coleman, 1980
Jimmy Kimmel, 1967
Whoopi Goldberg, 1955
Chris Noth, 1954
Jean Seberg, 1938
Oskar Werner, 1922
Nathaniel Benchley, 1915
Louis Brandeis, 1856
Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850


Today in History:

Lady Jane Grey and Bishop Cranmer are accused of high treason, 1553
Benjamin Franklin says, “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” 1789
The first US anti-slavery party, the Liberty Party, convenes in New York, 1839
James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism, which leads him to study the subject and come up with what he later calls hypnosis, 1841
The Denny Party arrives at Alki Point, becoming the first settlers of what would become Seattle, Washington, 1851
The first shipment of canned pineapple leaves Hawai'i, 1895
French cyclist Paul Corny flies the first helicopter, 1907