Dogpatch, USA

By Stan Greenberg

To a young boy growing up in 1940s Bronx, New York, USA, life in Arkansas was as remote as life in Outer Mongolia or the planet Mars. In those pre-politically correct times it was possible to speak about "Hillbillies" without receiving a caustic letter from the ACLU.

Every day in the Daily Mirror, now defunct, two comic strip episodes about naive, handsome, strapping, good-natured lugs would appear. One was Joe Palooka, Heavyweight Champion and the other was Li'l Abner. Li'l Abner was a resident of Dogpatch, USA. He wore tattered Levis, attached only on one shoulder, and a shredded, short-sleeved shirt accentuating his heavily muscled arms.

His full name was Abner Yokum, and even in an Ozark Mountains setting, his home life was familiar and recognizable to me. Mommy Yokum was like my mother - short and powerful, but loving and gentle. One difference: my mother never smoked a corn cob pipe. Pappy Yokum was similar to my dad in that he always listened to his wife. One difference: Pappy Yokum loved "po'k chops," and my father was a devotee of Flanken.

The inhabitants of Dogpatch USA were a varied, crude and motley assortment of characters. Let me list and describe a few of them.

Daisy Mae - blond, ample and beautiful. Desperately in love with Li'l Abner and always wearing short-shorts and a low-cut blouse. She tries to catch the naive, unaware Abner in the Sadie Hawkins day race, where any man caught by a woman must marry her, but she never succeeds.

Marrying Sam - short and fat, with the "Good Book" in hand. The women bring their men to Sam after the Sadie Hawkins Day Race, slung over their shoulders, and Sam performs the wedding for $2.

Moonbeam McSwine - sexy, lusty and slightly evil. Also lusts for Abner.

Joe Btfsplk - The little guy with a constant raincloud over his head. Impossible to pronounce his name and nothing good ever happens to him. We all know his type.

General Bullmoose - militaristic, merciless, madman.

Fearless Fosdick - Abner's favorite detective. Modeled after Dick Tracy.

Shmoos - multipurpose creatures. Rid yourself of frustration by kicking a shmoo. (They love being kicked.) In bad times they can be eaten. They taste like ham-hocks.

The creator of the fictional community Dogpatch, USA was Al Capp (born Alfred Gerald Caplin). These frolicsome hillbilly characters lampooned the foibles of the high and mighty for 43 years. John Steinbeck wrote, "I think that Capp may be the best writer in the world today."

When William Jefferson Clinton assumed the Presidency in 1992, it reawakened my yearnings for the Ozark Mountains and Dogpatch. Hillary, with some stretch of the imagination, could be Daisy Mae. Bill Clinton, at 6'3", certainly looked like Li'l Abner, and his drawling speech was how I pictured Abner would speak.

Some of the White House crowd also reminds me of Dogpatch. Webster Hubbell, Vince Foster, Susan and James McDougal, Janet Reno, Donna Shalala and Robert Reich would have no difficulty residing in Dogpatch, USA.

Life follows art? Art follows life? Who knows?

I do know that I can't look at or listen to our 42nd President without thinking of Li'l Abner, the Ozarks and that beautiful town of Dogpatch, USA.