for years I was smart

I was wrong to assume the term “pooka,” as applied to Harvey the invisible six-foot rabbit, was a cute invention of the writer; it turns out that these mythical shapeshifting critters have been around for a good long time in Ireland from whence their legend has spread. Come to find out, for example, that the character Puck in a A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of them. So the playwright Mary Agnes McDonough Coyle, who I’m guessing had a few Irish ancestors, was simply using the appropriate term to describe Elwood P. Dowd’s friend. I find that oh so pleasant.