[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]
Tonight is Christmas Eve, and as long as I’ve been posting stuff online I’ve marked the date by celebrating the best Christmas carol ever written. Alas, I fear you’ll need convincing.
Walt Kelly’s “Pogo” is my favorite comic strip of all time, and Kelly is in my personal pantheon of “Top Five Greatest Cartoonists Ever.” Sadly, “Pogo” is pretty much forgotten except for Pogo Possum’s Earth Day meme, “We have met the enemy and he is us,” but in the 1950s and ‘60s it was the hip thinking person’s comic strip: satirical, political, delightfully silly, and beautifully drawn. I never saw it in newspapers, but when I was 10 I discovered several “Pogo” collections on the bookshelves of my stepdad, who had been a smart college kid in its heyday.
It was love at first sight.
Kelly excelled at doggerel. Come Christmas, “Pogo’s” cast often broke into a chorus of “Deck us all with Boston Charlie,” whose lyrics wobbled perilously but always scanned. Join me, won’t you?
Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!
Don’t we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!
Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker ‘n’ too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, ‘lope with you!
Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly,
Gaggin’ on the wagon, Willy, folly go through!
Chollie’s collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarum bung-a-loo!
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