Sadie Hawkins

Okay, so as many of you know, Sadie Hawkins is coming up. And I was really bored during AP Calculus so I decided to look up the origin of Sadie Hawkins. There was a comic strip back in the late 1930's created by a man named Al Capp. He made this little town, Dogpatch (no lie), and explains the origin of Sadie Hawkins Day like this:
Sadie Hawkins was the daughter of one of the earliest settlers of Dogpatch, Hekzebiah Hawkins. She was the homeliest gal in all them hills. . . . For 15 years, [she] had failed to catch a husband. Her pappy, in desperation, one day called together all the eligible bachelors of Dogpatch."

He declared Sadie Hawkins Day. A starting gun is fired, to give the boys a head start, then a second gun is fired, and, as her father says, when Sadie "starts a-runnin', th'one she ketches'll be her husband."

Sadie did catch one of the boys. The other spinsters of Dogpatch reckoned it were such a good idea that Sadie Hawkins Day was made an annual affair.

So, later in the strip he uses Sadie Hawkins Day to spark an ongoing romance between Daisy Mae and Lil Abner. So that's why the girls ask the guys and the rest of the random traditions that go with the dance. Random fact of the day for ya! And it's all on www.straightdope.com. Isn't that great?

Oh and here is one of the strips that appeared in papers all over America: