Hundreds
of suggestions have been made as to the identity of the original Kilroy. The
phrase Kilroy was here first appeared on walls and every surfaces capable of absorbing
it during World War II and is still seen today in the remotest corners of the
globe, either freshly inscribed or a relic of older, if
not better days. Other
names like Clem and J.B. King have been substituted, but only Kilroy endures, so
much so that a Kilroy is now “someone who travels a great deal.” The most
popular theory seems to be that the first man to use the phrase was an inspector Kilroy in a Massachusetts shipyard who chalked the words on equipment to
indicate that it had his O.K. From Quincy the phrase traveled on crates all over
the world, copied by soldiers, sailors and airmen wherever it went. If this is
the case, Mr. Kilroy has probably been quoted more often than Mr. Shakespeare.
The Kilroy graffito is treated, along with thousands of wall writings, in Robert
Reisner’s excellent Graffiti, in which the author quotes one graffitologist who
insists that Kilroy represents an Oedipal fantasy, combining “kill” with “roi,”
the French word for “king.” In any (psychological” case, Kilroy Was Here reigns
supreme on walls everywhere, from the ruins in Pompeii where Figulus Loves Ida
to the New York City subways where Franz Kafka Is a Kvetch, Sara Lee Is a
Diabetic and hundreds of schizophrenics have urged us to Support Mental Health.