Happy Sadie Hawkins Day! Thanks to cartoonist Al Capp for giving the holiday its American name. The Sadie Hawkins tradition is a British one, in which women could propose to men only on February 29th. It was considered bad form for the man to refuse, at least in the thirteenth century. Here in America, Sadie Hawkins was the ugliest woman in Dogpatch (a creation of Al Capp). In order to avoid being saddled with providing for his daughter into old age, Sadie's father organized a race. Whomever Sadie caught had to marry her. The female residents of Dogpatch liked it so well, that they made the race a yearly event, and whatever male a single woman dragged over the finish line had to marry her. That Al Capp's race was on November 15 (beginning in 1937) made no difference to American women, who used the British date and the American tradition. So ladies, have your eye on anyone?
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