The Mark of a Sailor

From The Eastern Yacht Club Ditty Box [A history of the Marblehead's Eastern Yacht Club, covering the years 1870-1900]:

“Every true sailor should have a tattoo mark somewhere on his body, but as the process is expensive and quite painful most sailors are content with a small sample of this art. Not so with Messrs. [Charles G.] Weld and [Charles A.] Longfellow, who were not only real sailors but had the fortitude and appreciation of art to allow their whole backs to be tattooed in brilliant color and graceful design by a Japanese artist.”

That was 1885. The pair were on a trip to Japan and chartered an English schooner there, for a cruise--a cruise on which they shaved a point of land too close and grounded hard, smashing the schooner's main bulkhead. Everyone survived--including the schooner (called Loiterer), though she is reported to have later been smashed to bits in another accident.

Comments

[Dave Tew]

The first time I met my son's girlfriend she was wearing a wife-beater shirt. I caught a glimpse of a scratch on the back of one shoulder, but didn't say anything. Then I saw an identical one on the other side. "Some sex life!" I surmised. Later in the summer they were both sunbathing and cooing together on our lawn and I saw that she sported a set of curved pink angel wings tattooed on her back from the waist to both shoulder blades. The 'wingtips' were what I'd seen the first day.

[Bob Cleek]

Just surfing and found this thread. Tatoos,mmm? I'd say that tatoos were reserved for the foc's'l crew, but not worthy of officers! LOL The only tatoo I've got is a small dot on my right hand between thumb and index finger. I stuck myself with a stray strand of wire while cutting a particularly dirty (carbon) exhaust hose. The mark was permanently imprinted. I guess that makes me a sailor!

I'll bet anybody a buck that when this tatoo fad runs its course, there is going to be a big market for tatoo removal! I know a lot of old salts that got tatooed at the end of a long night ashore ("stewed, screwed and tatooed" was the drill) during the War. Those tatoos have all faded and bled and look like hell. Now they are relegated to the "something I did when I was young and crazy" file. A whole lot of fifty year old women are going to look pretty stupid with fancywork all over their sagging bodies in about twenty-five years or so. (One of my kids included!) Buy stock in laser tatoo removal equipment!