WHO WAS ALLEY OOP??

Some of the under-50 crowd have asked me in bewilderment, "Who was Alley Oop"? Actually, most are much younger than 50. I am acutely aware of the age differences, yet I tend to forget that most younger folks are clueless about references to matters 50 or 60 years in the past.

Alley Oop, children, was a comic strip character, a cave man, who lived quite naturally in cave -man days, wore what appeared to be a fur diaper and carried a stone ax. He had a girl friend named Oola with whom he shared all sorts of cave man adventures.

Back in the earlier days of Women's Liberation, sexist dorks were often referred to as cave men or Neanderthals. Probably an insult to the Neanderthals but they're not around to protest, as do the cave men on the Geico commercial.