TATTOOS: NICE GIRLS (AND BOYS) DO

Kim Kniepman received her first tattoo: a frog on her lower back.

Don Eaker dipped his tattoo machine into green ink to fill in the frog's color. The machine uses from one to several needles to apply the ink.

Don Eaker displayed two of the several tattoos he has collected over the years.

Kim Kniepman gasped as the needle drove repeatedly in and out of the skin of her lower back.

The steady buzzing paused, then resumed, the needle continuing its relentless path.

White lines appeared around the freshman's nose and lips, and she gripped Sara Shepherd's hand so hard her sorority sister gritted her own teeth.

"It's almost over," Shepherd said, as she eased her fingers slightly from Kniepman's grip.

"Gahh!" Kniepman said, keeping her lower body rigid and resuming her death grip. "That was a bad one."

"It's almost over," Shepherd reassured her again.

And then it was.

Kniepman reached for a mirror and twisted to look at the finished product: A small, green frog grinned at her, now a permanent part of her skin.

"Perfect," she said.

In the waiting area, Tosha Graham looked worried.

She was next.

Don Eaker, owner of A Different Drummer tattoo studio in downtown Cape Girardeau, has been giving tattoos for more than 25 years. In that time, he said, the art has changed dramatically, as have the customers openly passing through the studio doors.

"It's a far cry from drunken sailors and fallen women," Eaker said.

At one time, the tattooed man or woman was someone who was viewed in a freak show, pandering to man's urge to stare at the person who was "odd."

Now, body art has become fashionable with many popular actors, sports figures and fashion models proudly displaying tattoos.

Eaker has always seen people from "all walks of life" get tattooed. "But before, professional people -- like doctors, lawyers and bankers -- they were like, closeted."

In the beginning, tattoos were more than decoration, they were seen as talismans meant to guide a person through life and ensure safe passage beyond.

Dating back as far as 8000 B.C., tattoos are evidenced in most cultures. Ancient Greeks and Romans used them to signify slaves and criminals. On the Marquesas Islands, tattoos were used as signs of honor and status. In New Guinea, tattoos on women were regarded as a sign of beauty.

In the United States, tattoos have been used to express patriotism, devotion to loved ones, religious preferences or simply to reflect an aspect of a person's own personality.

Kniepman likes frogs.

Animals and flowers seem to be popular among women, Eaker said.

When he owned a shop near an Air Force base, eagles and flags were big sellers.

Depictions of bare-breasted women have also retained their popularity, as evidenced by some of Eaker's own tattoos.

The outgoing president of the National Tattoo Association, Eaker travels quite a bit to keep up with the latest techniques and trends in the ancient art, collecting tattoos along the way.

Ironically, he received his first tattoo as a sailor in the Navy "sometime in the '50s," he said. It is a small depiction of the island of Honolulu on his right calf.

For the record, he wasn't drunk when he got it.

"Actually, I've never been drunk when I got a tattoo," he said.

About 20 years later, he became a tattoo apprentice in St. Louis, opening his own shop in 1975.

Eaker said when he first started, a successful studio had to be in a major metropolitan area or near a military base.

He opened the Cape Girardeau studio about four and a half years ago. Eaker also owns two other studios in Texas, one operated by his son.

In Cape Girardeau, many of his clients, like Kniepman and Shepherd, are from Southeast Missouri State University.

"But I get everybody -- students, nurses, instructors, bikers and white-haired ladies," Eaker said.

Why do people get tattoos?

"For young people, it's kind of a rite of passage," Eaker said.

"If I see that it's obviously peer pressure that's making someone get a tattoo and they don't really want one, I try to give them an out, and say I've got to close up early or am out of ink or whatever," Eaker said.

Some like the shock value of an outrageous tattoo. Some see getting a tattoo as breaking a taboo or defacing the body.

And the white-haired ladies?

Generally, the few who come in request permanent eye liner and/or eyebrows, Eaker said. Those are the only exceptions he makes to his rule against tattooing faces.

Kniepman paid $40 dollars for the frog, the same price Shepherd paid for the small sunburst she had tattooed on her left ankle.

It was Kniepman's first tattoo, Shepherd's second.

Eaker instructed the 19-year-olds to leave their bandages on; to keep their tattoos out of the sun and to apply ointment.

Handing Kniepman a list of detailed care instructions, he repeated the bandage order.

"Try to keep it on for at least four hours, or until you absolutely have to show someone," he said.

Tosha Graham chose to get a tattoo of Thumper, the bunny from the move "Bambi" just above her bikini line.

But she decided her friend Melinda should go first.

The pair, both from Fredericktown, said "everyone thinks we're shopping."

Melinda chose to get a small dolphin over her belly button. She lay back in the tattoo chair. As Eaker pulled on rubber gloves and prepared the area for the tattoo, he explained the process.

A sterile needle, which is solid, quickly punches in and out of the skin, in a movement similar to that of a sewing machine.

As it pulls out each time, the flesh creates a kind of suction, drawing in the ink, attached to the tattoo machine, down into the skin.

"It's like when you push a stick in the mud and pull it out, the hole just sucks in on itself," Eaker said.

As the tattoo gun began buzzing, Melinda said it didn't really hurt.

Waiting, Tosha Graham looked worried.