Only Fools Rush In

By Ron McFarland

One could suppose that living pretty much in the middle of Moscow, on the corner of busy Ninth and Barnes, Georgia and I might not provide suitable habitat for the likes of the chic Mam’selle Hepzibah—glamorous denizen of Okefenokee Swamp, born into the world of Pogo comics in 1949—but one would be wrong. Our landscaping may be the culprit as much as the location of our modest single-story abode at the bottom of a small hill of the sort that requires cyclists to downshift to second or even first as they ascend. Somewhere in the bank of ivy and clump of ground juniper that deter erosion dwells Miz Hepzibah, or so I surmise.

I am a longtime fan of Walt Kelly’s Miz Mam’selle Hepzibah. Mind you, I have nothing against Pepé Le Pew of Looney Tunes fame, but I must confess that as a male I feel some natural amorous inclination toward Miz Hepzibah, who is said to have been modeled on Walt’s second wife, whose name was not Hepzibah. Miz H. appears to be infatuated with Pogo who, for the uninitiated, is a possum and who seems oblivious of her flirty ways.