© Features the other press e Barbara. fdamski e opfeatures@netscape.net November 5, 2003 z--» Whatever Happened to Sadie? Barbara K. Adamski Features Editor If you haven't arranged your date for Sadie Hawkin’s Day, there’s still time. It doesn't officially arrive until November 15. What do you mean, “What's Sadie Hawkin’s Day?” Why, everyone knows about Sadie . Hawkin’s Day, right? It’s one of the grooviest days there is. And for me, The cr @a tion every November (more or less), some odd little childhood memories of Sadie Hawkin’s Day resurface. r I had my first almost-date on Sadie Hawkin’s Day. I was eleven. My of this corsag € mom was not thrilled. It was a double date with bowling the planned activity. My friend and I asked two guys out. But when my friend zs Wasa wonder chickened out (or her mother did), I was left with no reason to go on a date with a boy. My mom was relieved. Not that I really wanted to do something as creepy as dating a boy, anyway. I just thought that’s what to me. She was done on Sadie Hawkin’s Day. So that was my big Sadie Hawkin’s celebration. I was too mortified to go through with that experience ever again—havent been on a double date since. Haven't actually been on attached baby that many dates of any kind since, for that matter. , But my older sister? Man, she had it made. Sadie Hawkin’s Day was bottles to It. always something special for her and her high school chums. The fact that she had a steady boyfriend (something that took me years to acquire) was a big help. Every November, she would go through the She attached bizarre Sadie Hawkin’s ritual of creating “The Corsage.” Not just any corsage, mind you, but the biggest, ugliest, most ridiculously embar- candies to it. rassing adornment you could ever imagine. The Corsage all started with a hardly innocuous, gigantic ribbon. I don't mean slightly oversized. I’m talking huge, as in three feet long. She attached Now, if wearing that weren't humiliating enough for a poor guy, my sis- ter spent weeks accumulating u crap to attach to this corsage. all sorts of five Of course, as a prepubescent - had my first little sister, I couldn't wait to and dime snare a man of my own so that almost-date on I could put him through this annual torturous ritual. 5 bore Stor e-type The creation of this corsage Sadie Hawkin 5 was a wonder to me. She ~ attached baby bottles to it. She knick-knacks attached candies to it. She attached all sorts of five and @ le Ven. My Mom until that oor dime store-type knick-knacks . p until that poor ribbon was qyyy7¢ not thrilled. totally weighted down with if ibbon was enough humiliation to last her man the entire year. Funny, she didn’t seem at all embarrassed by the 7 whole process. And I? I was intrigued. total ly weigh [- But - course, part and parcel he the whole Sadie Hawkin’s experience was the woman footing the bill for the date. Now this was fairly rare in ed down with the 70s (not that I was dating then), so I imagine this is why the poor guy allowed himself to be made a mockery of in public. Then again, age maybe not being asked out for Sadie Hawkin’s was a worse fate. enough humili- Sadie Hawkin’s Day made its debut November 1937 in Al Capp’s Li7/ Abner comic strip, which ran from 1934-77. Sadie was “the homeliest ' gal in the hills” and therefore grew tired of waiting for the fellas to come ation to last a courtin’. Her father Hekzebiah, a prominent resident of the town of Dogpatch, was also concerned that his homely daughter would never her man the marry, and declared November 15 the first annual Sadie Hawkin’s Day, consisting of a foot race in which all the single women in town chased : the local bachelors. The prize? Holy matrimony. en tir e year. Sadie Hawkin’s Day took the US and Canada by storm, with hun- dreds of colleges reportedly holding Sadie Hawkin’s Day events within just two years of its comic-strip inception. The dances (usually held the Saturday before or after the 15th) to which women asked men, became a “woman-empowering rite at high schools and college campuses, long before the modern feminist movement gained prominence,” according to . So there you have it. The story of a wonderful girl-power ritual that has gone by the wayside, all because of the women’s lib movement. It’s too bad we don’t have a Sadie Hawkin’s Dance around Douglas College. Then again, maybe it’s a good thing. At least now I won't have to go snare myself a date. Day. I was yi Se Page 18 ¢ http://www-otherpress.ca