Now We Are Big: The Adult Fates of Some Childhood Mates

Little Black Sambo

Li'l Abner Yokum

Little Red Riding Hood

Little Miss Muffet

Little Nemo

Little Toot

Little Eva 

 

No longer little -- 

though still undeniably black -- 

and eschewing the moniker 'Sambo,' 

believing it wack,

Sam is now Abul-qasim Abwan, 

after turning his back

on McComb, Mississippi 

and heading for Basra, Iraq.

No longer 'Li'l' -- 

although growing disturbingly vocal

in his rants against use 

of the libelous epithet 'yokel' --

Abner's shutter'd his shack 

and resign'd from the bed testers local.

(Will such turnabouts alter him...? 

Betcha a week in New Yo'k'll.) 

 

Grown, although still looking chic 

in her signature hood,

Red no longer haunts Grandmama's Forest, 

nor feels that she should.

"I'm so finished with canines 'n' crones, now. 

Is that understood...?"

rages Red as she shoulders her basket. 

"I'm leaving for good."

Grown, though still prone 

to evade ev'ry maid-stalking spider,

Muff's now ask'd a famed arachnologist colleague 

to guide her.

From their cheese curd and whey food truck, 

marketing crab-apple cider,

they report that no insect of any ilk

even has eyed her.

No longer little, 

nor keen on some Slumberland visit,

preferring Las Vegas 

(which sure ain't no Slumberland, is it...?),

our Nemo now wanders the Strip ev'ry night,

while in lieu

of pajamas he sports used fatigues --

and a pith helmet, too. 

No longer little 

nor up to his old full-time duty,

and ignoring his fellow tugs'

use of the moniker 'Toot,' he,

as "Captain N. Route,"  

ferries immigrants here to the States,

N. Route so-o-o-o-o Emma Lazarus loves.

(Stephen Miller he hates.) 

With Uncle Tom granted 

his freedom at last, and she grown,

Eva leaves the plantation 

to live in Atlanta, alone.

Selling paperback Bibles, 

she does fairly well on her own,

till last May when she dies,

having choked on a porbeagle bone.