'The Art Of Manliness'

Any of you old bastards remember when all of the smoke belching seagoing tin cans had the kind of artwork on hatches, bulkheads and water tight doors that would make your Granny turn in her grave?!? Hell, I remember murals showing bare bosomed mermaids and stuff that made you fear the Crackerjack in faraway places!! From Genuine Old Fashioned Pin up art to angry Denizens of the Deep, we had quite a collection of artwork over the years!!!

These masterpieces of work were a lighthearted representation of Workcenters, Divisions & Departments throughout the ship! Anything from El Diablo to the skimpy laced Buxom Blonde was acceptable in those days!! We had Sea Monsters, Popeye, Sharks, Octopus, and even goofy cartoon characters like Wild E. Coyote and the Road Runner!!! 

Yes, times have changed and some of the old traditions we thought would live forever died along the way! They went with some of the older traditions such as tacking the crow and getting whipped with the Shellback Shillelagh!! They just don’t play those kind of games anymore… for better or worse!!!

  

 

After Tailhook and the whole Battleship Iowa fiasco a few years back… the ol’ Canoe club hopped onboard with this ‘Kinder Gentler’ woof-woof! Force Commanders felt that it wasn't nice to tease young boots anymore and that we had to take it easy with Pollywogs and Junior Officers!! No more titties exposed on our Shellback certificates, Disney princesses being ravished by Big Bad Wolves or the Seven Dwarves, and no more Beer Swilling Barnacle Bill types as the whole Gauddamned character assassination came about on the ‘Drunken Sailor’ image!!!

Them were the good ol’ Days I tell you! I don’t give a damned who says it different! We used to have a whore or two in every port until the damned ‘Do Gooders’ came about and decided that cohabitating with the female love merchants selling affection with a little honey was some kind of international sin and made it punishable by law!!  Now you can’t tell the men from the women and the women from the boys in this crazy outfit… How the hell is the Chief supposed to square away his troops when we don’t even know who’s allowed to where a skirt, make up and panty hose!! Just forget we’re anatomically different!!!

Just like Bill Murray said in Ghost Busters…

“Dogs and Cats living together… mass hysteria!” 

Now it’s ‘Drop-The-Soap’ and ‘Transgender Panty Removal Contests!’ It’s a totally different Navy than we joined years ago!! Now you get to play Soapy Shower Pals with your whole Division… and you ain’t got no sexy Mermaids breasts to look at!! Now what are you supposed to do with a 'Drunken Sailor?!?'