Karol Krauser, the First Superman

The first Superman cartoons appeared in 1941, only three years after the Man of Steel first appeared in Action Comics.  They were produced by the Fleischer Studio, which also gave us Betty Boop and Popeye.  The Fleischers liked to work with real models, rotoscoping their movements to guide the animators, but for many years the model for the 17 Superman cartoons was unknown.

He turns out to be Karol Krauser, real name Karol Piwoworczyk, a young bodybuilder and wrestler.  The Superman website and wikipedia give few other details, but I managed to find some newspaper articles about him.

He was born in Krakow, Poland in 1912, attended the Polish Cadet School in Gniezne and the University of Krakow, and then worked as a physical education instructor at the Zwiazek Strzelecki, Polish military academy.

 At the beginning of World War II, he moved to New York and became a professional wrestler, dubbed the "Polish Apollo."   His first recorded match is in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on February 24, 1939.  By 1941, a newpaper article calls him the "popular Polish heavyweight champion."











He worked as a model for the Fleischers in 1939 and 1940, posing whenever they needed a muscleman, as in the Superman cartoons.

In 1945, Karol married female wrestler Zosia or Zoska Burska.   The best man at his wedding was none other than Stan Laurel of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy.

Most professional wrestlers retire in their 30s, but in 1953, at age 42, Karol and Edward Bogucki began a tag-team act as the Mad Russians, Karol and Ivan Kalmikoff.  During the Cold War, they became popular villains, winning several NWA competitions.

In 1962, Karol split from  Ivan and teamed up with Eric Pomeroy, billed as Stan or Igor Kalmikoff.  They appeared in several matches.

Karol died of a heart attack on September 12, 1964, after a match in Salt Lake City.

McCook, Nebraska: Population 7,000, beefcake population 23,000

Pity the gay people of McCook, Nebraska, population 7,000, in southwest Nebraska nowhere near anywhere.  The nearest gay neighborhoods are in Denver, 4 hours away, and Omaha, 4 hours away in the other direction.

The top attractions are the Museum of the High Plains (in an old house), the city park, and a nearby reservoir.

The top restaurants are Fuller's, with toys on the walls, A Taste of Texas BBQ, and McDonald's.

A March for Love in the city park in 2017 drew 50 participants and onlookers, as well as a car with a driver yelling "Death to gays!" and a protest "Marriage = 1 Man and 1 Woman" festival.

But what McCook lacks in restaurants, sights, and pro-gay residents, it makes up for in beefcake.  There are thousands of pictures online of McCook Bison wrestlers.

With or without their shirts.

Individual or group

Wacky or not (this one says "We mean business," so they're wearing ties, and one guy has a briefcase).

In McCook or away.

Sometimes with singlets.

And just when you think you have seen a beefcake photo of every high school and community college athlete in town, a whole file of pictures of the swim team appears.


And the cross-country team.

And powerlifters.

But I'm out of room.

Team Stomp Wrestling: Come for the Beefcake, Stay for the....

I don't know exactly what Team Stomp Wrestling is.  Its website doesn't work, and its Facebook page is a masterpiece of lack of information.  All I've been able to discover is:

1. It's in Lima, Ohio.

2. It's not the high school wrestling team.

3, Member regularly photographed with their shirts off.

4. All ages.

5. The Facebook page contains no photographs of anyone actually wrestling, just a lot of guys hugging.

6. The address is a long, low, nondescript building next to Rex Auto Supply and Brown Supply Company.

7.  They have a dog.

8. They have golf as well as wrestling.

9.  They go on field trips to statues of buffed guys (I'm assuming Neptune).

10. Their twitter page has a post from a guy named Zach, a "rock star pro wrestler," who is proposing to his girlfriend.  He thanks her for "being my Dwayne Johnson."

The next 100 posts are of people congratulating them with memes.

I'm guessing it's some sort of wrestling club.  I just came for the beefcake, but if you are interested in attracting new members, wouldn't you, like, somewhere on your social media sites, say what the group is?

Or do you expect everyone to just come for the beefcake?

Chesterfield, Missouri: Obfuscating High Schools and a Gay Botanist

Marquette High School is not in Marquette, Michigan, which one would naturally assume: Father Jacques Marquette (1637-1675) was the first European to visit what is now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, but he never made it to Missouri.

It's in Chesterfield, but not Chesterfield, Virginia, which one would naturally assume.  Chesterfield, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis on the St. Charles River, formed in 1988 by the merging of an unincorported area formerly occupied by the villages of Bellefontaine, Bonhomme, Hog Hollow, and Gumbo.

Leave it to Missouri to obfuscate.  The school website leaves out any mention of the city or state.  I only found out because when you search for Tucson, Arizona swim teams on Google Images, you get the Fort Zumwalt East High Swim Team in St. Peters, Missouri, which plays against Chesterfield.

I have a question about the one black wrestler on the Fort Zumwalt team going against the one black wrestler on the Marquette team.

In March 2019 a Marquette High School student posted an Instagram photo of herself in blackface.  She claimed that it was just special effects makeup, and the school responded: "The incident did not take place on school property."

Later that month, students at Parkway Central High in Chesterfield posted a video laced wih racial slurs and threats, including chants of "slavery" and suggestions that all African-Ameicans should die.  The school responded: "The students have received consequences."

Other than its obfuscating and racially suspect high schools (albeit with interesting wrestling techniques), Chesterfield is known for its gay botanist.

Faust Park (no connection to the German scientists who sold his soul to the devil) features a historic village (open March-July), a carousel, and the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House, home to 2,000 butterflies of 80 species.  It's part of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, founded by Henry Shaw in 1858.   Admission is free on July 24th to celebrate his birthday.

Henry Shaw (1800-1889)  moved from Britain to St. Louis as a young man, and became so wealthy that he was able to retire at age 40 and devote the rest of his life to his interest in botany.  Aside from the Botanical Gardens, he contributed to many other Missouri institutions.  He has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, along with Maya Angelou, Scott Bakula, T, S, Eliot, Vincent Price, and Tennessee Williams.

He never married; according to his biography, "he went to parties and balls occasionally,but he seemed to avoid making acquaintances among the girls; he avoided making female friends, fearful that he might fall in love."

Sure,that's one explanation for it

Wahoo: A Fish, a Shrub, a Town, and a High School

"Wahoo" sounds like a cry of happiness or excitement, like "Yippee" or "Yahoo."   But the dictionary demotes the interjection to #4, after a fish and two bushes, all based on Native American names garbled into "wahoo." One of the bushes donated its name to Wahoo Creek in Nebraska, whence the city.

It's in the cornfields about 45 miles west of Omaha, one of those quintessential small towns with a grid of streets, east-west numberd, north-south named after trees: Sycamore, Chestnut, Locust, Elm, Beach, Pine.

















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2,1 square miles containing 1,801 houses (8 with gay people), 10 churches, 18 restaurants  (including the Wigwam Cafe, the C&C Cafe, Rezac's Cafe, and the Stockyard Cafe). 3 parks, 2 high schools, a county jail, the county courthouse, city hall, and a lot of trees.

Its main claim to fame dates back to 1995, when the town leaders petitioned David Letterman to identify it as the "home office" for his late night talk show.  They sent many whimsical gifts, including a Ford Pinto (the old car that exploded on impact), a clock made of cow dung, and two teenage boys, Jeff and Josh Price.  He finally agreed, but sent the boys home.





Maybe he already had all the teenage boys he needed.

If you have a few names left on your Christmas list, try the Yahoo High Swim Team.

This group seems a little young -- I swear I saw braces.  Maybe they're from the Aquatic Center.

There are a lot of wrestlers, both local high schools.

I'm not usually into crosscountry, but I might watch these guys, just for the jogging trunks with various national flags on them.  The photo doesn't explain the significance.

This came up in a search on "Wahoo powerlifting," but I think it's more "Wahoo!  Powerlifting!"

And I think these guys have actually caught a "Wahoo" fish.

The Mysterious Time Traveling Wrestler from Thunder Bay

Sometimes our ability to use the internet to find out almost everything about almost anybody leads down some curious rabbit holes. 

The person in the middle is striking, too tiny to be real.  He doesn't have the right proportions to be a dwarf or a child, yet he must be about 4 feet tall. I figure the photo must be a photoshop trick or some deliberately staged optical illusion.

It's from a 2013 newspaper article, "Thunder Bay Wrestlers Gold Medal Winners," which they received at the Canada Summer Games.  No evidence of photoshopping or deliberate staging: the middle person is just very tiny.  His name is Marco, and he volunteers as a coach and referee in youth wrestling tournaments.

Coaches and referees are always adults, so he's not a child or a high school student.  He must be over 18.

This is the beginning of a mysterious journey through conflicting, constantly shifting ages.

1.  Marco is 24-26.  The Canada Games, held every two years, are like a national Olympics, with 1700 amateurs representing their province in athletics, baseball, basketball, diving, wrestling, and so on.  You have to be ages 13-20, so Marco was 18-20 in 2013.

2. Marco is 17-20.  There aren't many Marcos from Thunder Bay, Ontario, so it was easy to find his Facebook page.  Lots of beefcake photos, but no specific age information.

A post from 2018 does state that he got a silver medal at the Junior Pan-American Championships in Fortaleza, Brazil.

The Junior Pan-American Championships, sponsored by United World Wrestling, are held every two years.  They are for athletes 16-19 years old.

So 17-20, or 24-26?  Which is it?

3. Marco is 20-21.  This post from May 2016 shows him at Prom with someone named Nikolas, who is now studying for his nursing degree.

Wait -- is Marco gay?

I don't know, but this isn't his prom date.  St. Patrick, a Catholic high school in Thunder Bay, would never allow same-sex dates at senior prom.  Nikolas must be just a bud.  But anybody who goes to senior prom in 2016 has to be 20-21 now.

20-21, 17-20, 24-26.  Curioser and curioser.

4. Marco is 22-24.  He must have graduated earlier, and went to someone else's senior prom.  Here is a photo of Marco from 2017, a year later, as a member of the wrestling team at Lakeland University, a public research university with 8,000 students.  He's in his third year, studying business commerce, hoping to become an entrepreneur.

A junior in college in 2017, but 16-19 in 2018?  Something does not add up.

5. Marco is 20-21.  In 2015, he initiates a  "Go Fund Me" that raises $3,777 to send Team Canada to a European competition.  He states that he's 16 years old and has been wrestling for the Lakehead Wrestling Club for 5 years.

So he coached youth wrestling as a child, played at the Canada Games in 2013 at age 13 (thus explaining why he's so tiny surrounded by adults), graduated from high school in 2016 at age 17, spend through college to be in his third year by 2017, and competed in the Junior Pan Am games in 2018 at age 19.

That's quite a career.  Still a few unexplained questions.  How did he rush through college so fast?  What was he doing as a coach at age 13?  And what's with the hat?

Royal Beefcake

You don't see a lot of teams named "Royals" in the U.S., our Founding Fathers being opposed to monarchy and all, so when I saw this picture of a very busy wrestler on theWoodbury Royals, I assumed somewhere in Canada.

Nope.  It's the team of Woodbury High School, Woodbury Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis.










The team mascot, by the way, is Roar the Lion.

I'd like to hear the argument in favor of calling the Woodbury team the Royals instead of the Lions.

But surely it's the only Royal team in the U.S.  We just don't care much for the trappings of monarchy here.

But surely this "Hamilton Royals" team is Canadian, from Hamilton, Ontario.

No, it's The Hamilton Southeastern High School Royals of Fishers, Indiana.

Their mascot is a lion, also.

Ok, two Royals teams in the United States.  Surely there aren't any more.

3. The Georgetown High School Royals of Georgetown, Massachusetts, north of Boston. I couldn't find any wrestling photos, so here's a powerlifter.

3. I suppose the Royalton Royals get a pass, since they're in the town of Royalton, Minnesota, a small town north of St. Cloud.  It was named after Royalton, Vermont, which was founded by the Royal Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1769.

There was only one boy on the swim team.

4,  But not the Miller Place High School Royals of Miller Place, New York, on the north side of Long Island.  Their mascot is a panther.

What's with all the Royals?  I thought Americans were anti-Monarchist and all that?

5. The Rosetown Royals Speed Swimming Club is from Rosetown, Saskatchewan, a small town about 100 km south of Saskatoon.

6. The Rogers Royals in Rogers, Minnesota, another suburb of Minneapolis.

7. The Bethel College Royals.Bethel is a fundamentalist Christian college in Arden Hills, Minnesota, a suburb of...you guessed it.

You'd think that all the Royals teams in Minneapolis would get confusing.

8, The Royals of Warner University in Lake Wales, Florida, a fundamentalist Christian institution.  Not named after the Warner Brothers and their Warner sister, Dot?

I guess fundamentalist Christian colleges can get a pass because of all the royal rhetoric in the Bible.

9. The Mason County Royals from Maysville High School in Maysville, Kentucky, on the Ohio River about 60 miles from Cincinati.

What's with the weird alien-abductee grins?

10. Ok, the San Marcos High School Royals in Santa Barbara, California.  These swimmers look rather disgusted.

I believe that's all the Royals in the U.S.

11. Wait -- after the original post, someone told me that there's a baseball team called the Kansas City Royals.  Its name derives from the American Royal livestock show, rodeo, and barbecue held every year since 1899.

Named after a horse, not a king? Maybe that explains the other American Royals.









Turns out that they are in Minnetonka, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis.

And there's a Rogers Royals in Rogers, Minnesota.