Model Forum / General / Models / April 2004

Sounds like a VFW or Legion Post. :)

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Since the original comic strip dated from the early 1930's (or late '20's), I
strongly suspect that Popeye was drawn to represent a stoker, one of those
hardy souls who shoveled coal into the ship's boilers for hours every day for
decades. I've seen old photos of these guys, and their forearms really were
freakish. With the advent of oil-fired boilers and later, diesel engines, this
job disappeared, and so did the body type.
Gerald Owens

<< Was at my favorite watering hole last night. A old
WW2 Popeye cartoon came on. Popeye beats up
Bluto, sinks the Japanese Navy and then takes Olive
upstairs to a cheap hotel. Well enough, but the
spectulative comment was not on the sailor's
physical or sexual ablities but his rank or 'rating'
as they say in  the Queen's Navy. Some old salts
said, with those forearms, he had to be a gunner
or torpeado mans mate. Some said the same was
found in bomb hangers on aircraft carriers...others
said he was just a common swabbie and liked to
j*ck off a lot...lots of laughs and good drinks went
the course. Just thought I would share it with you
guys.
Mike IPMS