Eats | 4/7/08

Media Credit: Patrick Smith [Click to enlarge]

While Popeye may have been a "sailor man," Richard Sullivan is a "card swiping" man who bares a striking resemblance to the 75-year-old cartoon and comic strip character.

Sullivan swipes OneCards in the Newell Dining Hall five-days-a-week, and is often greeted by students asking him, "How you doing, Popeye?"

To which he smiles, laughs and replies, "I'm doing all right, how are you?"

When students ask Sullivan if he thinks he really looks like Popeye, he says, "Take a look at the picture up there, what do you think?" indicating a photo of himself hung by the entrance of Newell.

"I do better when I got my sailor cap and my pipe," Sullivan said, conceiting that the photo is of him in a Halloween costume, which is where the lifelong comparison began.

"It's been years now, about 25 years. I dressed up like Popeye once at Halloween and it stuck," Sullivan said.

The Chartwells employee said he always wears his Popeye costume on Halloween to work. Although 11 years of swiping cards has not engorged his forearms like his fictional doppelganger.

" I love it. It's a fun job. I came here to try it out and I've been here 11 years. A friend of mine used to work at Paws," Sullivan said.

Prior to his time at Towson, Sullivan worked as a mechanic, not a sailor, however he said there are a number of similarities between he and the character Robin Williams once played on screen.

While Sullivan is not a sailor, he still has a boat, a 28-foot-Carver to be exact. Boating is a hobby of Sullivan's that he takes part in after he gets off work at 1 p.m.

Sullivan has been married for 18 years to his second wife, "his Olive Oil."

"I was a widower for almost 20 years. It took me that long to find a good one," Sullivan said.

The cartoon Popeye was known for his ability to hold his own in a fight. Sullivan, now well into his senior years, acknowledged he is no stranger to fisticuffs.

"I've been in a few fights... won some, lost some, some got rained out," he said laughing. But there is no Bluto, Popeye's rival, in Sullivan's life. He said he's friendly with everyone, especially Towson students.

"They're a really nice group of people. I enjoy them," he said.

The comparisons go as far as Sullivan's dog, which he named Sweet Pea.

"That's Olive Oil's nephew," he said.

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