oops

                        for Alice Pullen Hanna, 1914-1970

People didn’t know,

but shoes hurt.

She seldom wore them.

They’re wide as Alley Oop’s,

she moaned; her blocks of feet

rubbed dry paper grooves

in the linoleum.

No caveman club for this girl.

Weapon of choice was a flyswatter,

waved above her head

like a steeplechase jockey,

but never a welt for her bug boy.

I was Foozy in her land of Moo,

rhyming morning into noon,

with a fence of Riley goblins

and a raggedy shoeless man.

willow, 2010

Alley Oop was a syndicated comic strip created in 1932 by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin. The title character, was a caveman in a prehistoric kingdom of Moo, and his pal Foozy always talked in rhyme.  My grandma always complained about her feet being just like Alley Oop's.  

I have fond memories of her reading to me from a book of James Whitcomb Riley poems. He was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and was best known for his writings in the Hoosier dialect, including "The Raggedy Man" and "Nine Little Gobblins".

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