POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN

• WHO KNEW?
  His real name was Frank “Rocky” Fiegel.
  He was born in 1868 in Poland and, as a child, immigrated to the United States with his parents, who settled down in a small town in Illinois. As a young man, Rocky went to sea. After a 20 year career as a sailor in the Merchant Marines, Fiegel retired.
  He was later hired by Wiebusch’s Tavern in the city of Chester, Illinois as a ‘Bouncer’ to maintain order in the rowdy bar.
  Rocky quickly developed a reputation for always being involved in fighting (and usually winning). As a result, he had a deformed eye (“Pop-eye”).
  He also ‘always’ smoked his pipe, so he always spoke out of one side of his mouth.
  In his spare time as a Bouncer, Rocky would entertain the customers by regaling them with exciting stories of adventures he claimed to have had over his career as a sailor crossing the ‘Seven Seas.’

The creator of Popeye, Elzie Crisler Segar, grew up in Chester and, as a young man, met Rocky at the tavern and would sit for hours listening to the old sailor’s amazing ‘sea stories.’
Years later, Segar became a cartoonist and developed a comic strip called ‘Thimble Theater.’
He honoured Fiegel by asking if he could model his new comic strip character, ‘Popeye the Sailor Man,’ after him. Naturally Fiegel was flattered and agreed.
Segar claimed that ‘Olive Oyl,’ along with other characters, was also loosely based on an actual person. She was Dora Paskel, owner of a small grocery store in Chester.
She apparently actually looked much like the Olive Oyl character in his comics.
He claimed she even dressed much the same way.
Through the years, Segar kept in touch with Rocky and always helped him with money; giving him a small percentage of what he earned from his ‘Popeye’ illustrations.
WHO didn’t love the cartoons??? We watched them religiously … so funny, so moral … each story had a good ending … wonder if kids these days even KNOW who Popeye is??? Who knew he was a real man??

Little Johnny watched his daddy’s car pass by the school playground and go into the woods. Curious, he followed the car and saw Daddy and Aunt Jane in a passionate embrace.

Little Johnny found this so exciting that he could hardly contain himself as he ran home and started to tell his mother. ‘Mummy, I was at the playground and I saw Daddy’s car go into the woods with Aunt Jane. I
went back to look, and he was giving Aunt Jane a big kiss, and then he helped her take off her shirt. Then Aunt Jane helped Daddy take his pants off, then Aunt Jane…’>

At this point, Mummy cut him off and said, ‘Johnny, this is such an interesting story, let’s save the rest of it for supper time. I want to see the look on Daddy’s face when you tell it tonight.’>

At the dinner table that evening, Mummy asked little Johnny To tell his story
Johnny started his story, ‘I was at the playground and I saw Daddy’s car go into the woods with Aunt Jane. I went back to look, and he was giving Aunt Jane a big kiss, then he helped her take off her shirt. Then Aunt Jane helped Daddy take his pants off, then Aunt Jane and Daddy started doing the same thing that Mummy and Uncle Bill used to do when Daddy was away on the oil rigs.’

Mummy fainted!

Moral:

Sometimes you need to just shut up and listen to the whole story before you interrupt!

You can reach George Walters at: [email protected]

Good morning! Well … I have been thinking on what to say here this morning to all my friends that have gotten in touch with me over the years, liking my Blog and Podcasts. Then this song happened upon me. Sent to me by my cousin. So give it a listen, when you find a minute. Have a great Easter Weekend. GW

You can reach George Walters at: [email protected]