Mae's Real Stories

One of the adventures of Pogo the Possum was to run for President. He ran in 1952, 1956, and other years. The real politicians who ran for President in 1952 and 56 were named Eisenhower and Stevenson, just like the real ones this year are named Obama and McCain. Eisenhower won both elections.

I found some pictures of Pogo campaign buttons. He also had a campaign song, I think -- also special versions of Christmas carols and other songs.

"Pogo the Possum" was a cartoon in the daily newspaper that I read when I was a girl. It appeared in the paper named The St.Louis Post Dispatch. Another time, I wrote about the funnies in the Post here: "Dibs on the funny paper".

Pogo was a funny little guy, who lived with his friends, other talking animals, in the Okeefenokee Swamp. Walt Kelly, the cartoonist, drew one 4-panel cartoon every day. The story continued from day to day. Nowadays, you can read cartoons like this in newspapers or online.

One of the characters in the cartoon was named Snavely Snake. He wore a hat, as you can see in the picture. So did many of the other characters, and in fact, back then, many men wore hats every day.

One day there was a letter in the newspaper. It asked readers a question: how does Snavely Snake get his hat on without having any hands. Your answers could be sent to the newspaper. I tried an answer. I think I said that Snavely dug a hole under his hat, and came up underneath to get it onto his head.

A few weeks later, Walt Kelly himself sent me an autographed copy of the Pogo book named Positively Pogo to thank me for trying to answer the question. A little note also appeared in the newspaper. I think he preferred a different answer: that Snavely tossed his hat up with his tail, and caught it on his head. Anyway, here's the autograph and the cover of the book:

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