Word: btfsplk
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Their names were enough to make most Americans guffaw: Moonbeam McSwine, Fearless Fosdick, Lonesome Polecat, Joe Btfsplk (pronounced Btfsplk). For 43 years they frolicked across the funny pages lampooning the foibles of the high and mighty and mouthing the pungent politics of their raspy-voiced creator, Al Capp. He called his hillbilly vaudeville Li'l Abner, and it made him a wealthy man, though not an especially happy one. Racked by emphysema and distressed by the social changes he saw around him, Capp abruptly retired in 1977. He took up a reclusive life in Cambridge, Mass., where he died...
...Abner and Daisy Mae long ago slipped into American language and folklore, together with the other denizens of Capp's hillbilly heaven, where Mammy Yokum defended her ragtag family and shaky log cabin against the likes of zoot-suited Evil-Eye Fleegle and his triple whammy. Joe Btfsplk and his perpetual cloud rained down bad luck on almost everyone, and the unluckiest ended up in the hands of Freddie the undertaker. The shmoos rolled over dead and oven ready for hungry hoomins. Hulking Hairless Joe and his faithful Indian sidekick, Lonesome Polecat, dispensed hair-curling batches of Kickapoo...
After four years in the field, the Americal is standing down. It is none too soon. Every war produces its hard-luck units, and the Americal, for all the bravery of most of its men, was the G.T. Joe Btfsplk of Viet Nam. It is not only dropping out of the war as part of the U.S. withdrawal, but dropping out of existence in the U.S. Army. Soon after the division's headquarters returns to the U.S. this month, the colors will be officially retired and the books closed on the ill-fated outfit...