Kilroy was here!

...and he's now blind.  I was unable to put eyes into his head.  I could try for hours to solve these things and I'm unable to solve any of them. This puzzle intrigued me.  George and I were moving the cabinets around and I came to a complete stop when I saw these puzzles. It brought back memories of my childhood when I first learned of Kilroy.  

Because I'm beginning to realize just how old I am, I'll explain Kilroy.  I first encountered Kilroy when I was in grade school. At that time, he was becoming harder and harder to find.  I'm not sure if he's around anymore at all other than on wikipedia and in a few movies.  Kilroy as I heard the story first showed up during WWII.  He was supposedly engraved on the bolts of ship hulls being built during the war.  These bolts were later found by shipmen who spread the early meme throughout Europe and later Asia.*

As is usually the case for these puzzles, I was unable to solve them.  Why?  I have no patience for dexterity (or patience) puzzles.  I guess I have the attention span of a gnat.  There are too many other things to entertain myself with right now.  These puzzles are both made of a glass top with a cardboard base and 2 steel balls to place in the eyes.  They are from the WWII period so must have been produced after 1940. The Lily library credits this puzzle to 1942,  (was it purchased by them in London circa 1942?).  My research has discovered that Kilroy first appeared on British shores when it was painted on the wing of a glider for Operation Market Garden in 1944.  According to the same webpage, Kilroy was spotted in Italy in 1943.  He was said to be in the African theater earlier than that.  Who knows when he showed up, but I'm glad he did.  It makes for a good run down a rabbit hole* and a good old man joke: 

Knock knock

Who's there?

Kilroy

Kilroy who?

Kill Roy Rogers, I'm a Gene Autry fan. 

On to the museum update: 

We have been staying here for the past few weeks again.  I'm now on a reorganizing kick.  When I first put all of the puzzles on the shelves, I tried to organize them by alphabetical order but not having a master list who the builders/designers were I didn't succeed. I think I'm doing well with names now and have been doing it the right way.  Currently I'm up to the H's and should be able to finish by weeks end.  At the same time I am reorganizing, I am photographing the pieces.  This is a major part of the job.  All of the ceramics have been photographed as they were placed on the vase wall (Yes James, I know these words are not interchangeable, but it is our place and these are the names I have chosen for them.  It makes it easier when turning out the lights.) 

When our young photographer comes in, I switch to working on cataloguing the library books. I've not gotten a master list from James, just a vague number.  Fair enough.  There are a lot!  I have a few books I want to purchase, but don't want to do it until I have an idea of what we are holding.  This process has been made so much easier with the invention of the barcode and ISBN's.  Sadly, not all books have an ISBN and need to be manually processed.  The convention didn't start until 1969, and even then not all books can be found using that number.  You can see a start of the collection at my google books page. We have chosen to make this public to help other puzzlers find books they may be looking for.  The 154 books that have been catalogued so far took me 3 hours to enter.  Those are only 1/8th of the collection including our own contributions to the library.  I expect to have this finished by the end of the month.

Until next week, Happy Puzzling!

  

*Upon searching the internet later as my curiosity has now been engaged, I came across this little blip from Wikipedia:  "The Lowell Sun reported in November 1945 that Sgt. Francis J. Kilroy Jr. from Everett, Massachusetts, wrote "Kilroy will be here next week" on a barracks bulletin board at a Boca Raton, Florida, airbase while ill with flu, and the phrase was picked up by other airmen and quickly spread abroad.^[9] The Associated Press similarly reported Sgt. Kilroy's account of being hospitalized early in World War II, and his friend Sgt. James Maloney wrote the phrase on a bulletin board. Maloney continued to write the shortened phrase when he was shipped out a month later, according to the AP account, and other airmen soon picked it up. Francis Kilroy only wrote the phrase a couple of times.^[6][17]"  I guess it is fitting that these two pieces ended up here.