On Jan. 3, 2010, my article in the Tribune’s Lifestyles Section mentioned a pre-New Year’s Day Sadie Hawkins dance at Austin’s Terp Ballroom back in 1949. The advertised motto for this event was, “Girls be ready – boys be brave.”

There was something oddly familiar about this Sadie Hawkins name. Then, two weeks ago, I found part of the answer in a Tiger Yearbook while researching another topic. The rest of the answer regarding this alleged American celebration came with a check on Yahoo, plus the Tribune’s topic search feature.

Sadie Hawkins actually originated with a newspaper comic strip named “Li’l Abner,” created by Al Capp. The first mention of this event, based on a single girl catching a bachelor on a special day on the calendar and dragging him off to be married, was depicted in the Nov. 13, 1937, comic strip. This unusual event became extremely popular in American and Canadian high schools and colleges. As a result, Capp would use this event in his comic strip between Nov. 19 and 30 for the next 40 years and this helped to make Sadie Hawkins Day a popular part of student life with girls chasing boys and paying all the expenses for a dance and dinner on that one special day of the year. And as I will explain later, the marriage detail was just a fun and fake deal.

With his permission for a reprint and a slight change, here’s what Al Batt had regarding this topic in his Oct. 3, 2004, Tribune column:

“Li’l Abner was featured in newspapers from 1934 until 1977. At one time it was read by 60 million people each day. The famed novelist John Steinbeck called Al Capp the greatest writer in the world. Al Capp created many wonderful characters in his hillbilly-haven called Dogpatch. Capp was the one who began Sadie Hawkins Day, a girl asks boy dance.

“Besides Li’l Abner, Al Capp gave us Daisy Mae, Mammy and Pappy Yokum, Fearless Fosdick (a takeoff on another comic strip character named Dick Tracy), Moonbeam McSwine, Joe BTFSPLK (the human jinx), General Bullmoose, Jubilation Cornpone, Senator Jack S. Phogbound. Marryin’ Sam, Evil-Eye Fleagle, (whose whammy stare could knock a man senseless), Stupefyin’ Jones, the Shmoo, Hairless Joe and Lonesome Polecat.”

As a slight digression, I have a strong feeling Daisy Duke of the more recent “Dukes of Hazzard” television series is a takeoff on Capp’s Daisy Mae.

The traditional time for Sadie Hawkins Day was during November as originally established by Al Capp. Yet, this sometimes wild event could take place on other dates during the year. As I indicated in the first paragraph of this column, a Tribune ad using this name for an old time dance over in Austin took place at the end of December 1949.

There’s still another special date suggested for Sadie Hawkins Day. That day is Feb. 29. For some odd reason there was a proposal for the date so closely associated with leap year to also have a new name. On this day which comes around every four years women could do the proposing for marriage. This caper didn’t catch on at all.

The students in the high schools and colleges and other folks preferred to observe this day, based on the comic strip featuring Li’l Abner, Daisy Mae and all those other mountain williams (hillbillies) of Dogpatch, every year instead of every fourth year.

In next week’s column we’ll highlight the way Sadie Hawkins Day was once celebrated at Albert Lea High School.

Ed Shannon’s column has been appearing in the Tribune every Friday since December 1984.