First Communion -
An angel
dressed
in
all white.  

Still an
angel but
not
dressing
in white
these
days!

An Ovesen photo.



St. Patrick's
School -
White
shirt,
khaki
pants,
green
tie.  
Were
shoes
black?

Can't
recall
grade I
was in
when
this photo
was
taken.







St.
Joseph's
High -
Photo
taken a
few days
before
the
1969
graduation.





Graduation
day.   
Ceremonies
held at St.
Patrick's
Church
since
St.
Joseph's
Chapel
too small.



Promotional
photo
taken
at Social
Security
while
I
was a
trainee.

Taken in
1973
or
1974.

Helene
and
Pat in
photo.






Looking
cool.  

Don't I
look
Arab?  

Photo was
taken in
1973
or
1974.

Believe it
or not,
I used a
similar photo
as my
passport
photo,  
June 1974.  
Got in a
lot of
problems
with
Customs
with this
hair style.  
Asked
many
questions,

bags
always
searched!


From lots
of hair to
no hair.  
Always
kept the
beard.  
Went from
1969-1989
without

shaving.  
This photo
taken by

Henry,
a
close
friend,
at
Belmont
Racetrack.

In
November
1989, after
20 years
without
shaving,
I decided
to shave.

Feeling
the blade
on my skin
was
not
easy!  

Here
I am with
no beard!

I felt
naked!!

Part of my watermarking includes what looks like a man, the sun and a fish jumping into the ocean.  
This image was done by Shane Sobers (a grand nephew) on my laptop in 2004.  
On the photos above the image can be seen on the lower left corner.
Below is a larger copy of the image
02/12/06, 05/23/20
My Different Looks
Drawn
by
Shane
Sobers, St.
Croix,  © 2004

Getting the Christmas lights ready to decorate for Ma, December 2006.  
Photo taken by Nilsa without my knowledge!  My beard is trimmed close
to my face.  As you can see, the beard is mostly gray!

The photos from my expired passports, 1974 to 2003.
Left - This photo appeared in my 1974 to 1979 passport.  The hairstyle created a few problems for me.  
See similar photo above but with glasses on!  
Right - 1979 to 1984.
Left - 1985 to 1995.  This passport almost kept me out of Germany in 1993.  One corner of the photo had somehow
come loose and the agent thought the photo may have been replaced.  He told me to get a new passport as soon
as I got back to USA.  Same passport used to get into Spain, Portugal and Morocco but nothing said at those
points of entry.   Though passport was good through 1995, I had it replaced in 1993.

Right - 1993 to 2003.  As you can see, I replaced passport as the German custom agent had suggested.  
This photo is from a special celebratory passport honoring  Benjamin Franklin as a diplomat and the bicentennial
of the U.S. Consular Service.


This photo
was taken
on
July 4, 1980.  
It is part
of a group
photo
which can
be seen
on
Page D.  
I let my hair
and beard
grow for
an entire
year,
October
1979
to
October
1980.  

Received the following photos from my sister, Maria.


Photo at left are:  
Paco, Javier
and me.

Cropped the
photo to show
you how long my
beard was.  I let
the hair on my
head and face
grow for one
year.  Presently,
I am doing the
same.

Photo taken in
1980.  If I am not
mistaken, this
was on a ferry to
Bear Mountain
.
Jessica
With Alex
Nelson
Don't know what year this photo was taken.
Looks like Nilsa's residence in St. George's.

And why did I buy this card?  Recently, I was discarding things I no longer needed and came across this card.  
Who was it intended for?  Did I buy it just for the words?  Since I like it, I decided to include it here.
© HALLMARK
Dorsch Beach, Frederiksted, 1991

What I look like today, six months after I started growing my hair and beard.  Will let hair and beard grow for a year.  
See you in six months!  Photos taken December 23rd using web cam.
Wall is not pink, it's Ballad by Behr.   You can Google that color!  #1 - Photo taken at Hams Bluff, St. Croix many,
many years ago.  #2 - Poster of Carnival Miracle, gift on 2007 cruise.  #3 - Group photo taken on cruise of
2007.  
#4 - One of three plates I have of Star Trek characters.  #5 - Kit with "wild" male Betta (the one that should have
been a female).  #6 - See photo at right below.  The 5 gallon tank.
1
2
3
4
5
6

Two photos below:  March 2011

UPDATE:  May 3, 2020 - My hair and beard are about  the same length due to the pandemic.   
Barbershops are no
t open.
Taken at work.  
Different
tones on
face due to
camera
and/or
printer used.

What happened to my face?  This is what I remember.  I was in bed, told myself I had to get up and go to the
bathroom.  Sometime later, I found myself on the floor in a pool of blood.  How long was I on the floor only God
knows.  I ended up in the ER since I could not get the gash over my right eye to stop bleeding.  All tests came back
normal.  What do I think happened?  One of the medications I take is known to cause dizziness.  I must have gotten
out of bed too fast!  All this took place September 22, 2012.  By the 23rd my right eye was swollen and completely
closed.  The photos below were taken on the 24th.   I am writing this on October 9th and all is back to normal.
As we say in France, "c'est la vie!"
Right eye!
Update, July 28, 2013 - Everything healed nicely.

The above was done through Ancestry.com.  I was curious and wanted to see what the
results would show.  Grandma said that her ancestors were from Spain while Grandpa
believed he was part Taino.  We know that in all this there was an African mix.  

In case you can't make out the Regions and Approximate Amounts:

Africa - 23%, America - 14%, Europe - 56%, and West Asia 7%.  The highest subregion
percentages are:  North Africa 8%; Native American 14%; Iberian Peninsula 34%;
and Italy/Greece 9%.

You can believe what you want to believe!

May 21, 2018 - See information below about the DNA done using Geno 2.0 (Helix) via
National Geographic.

I let beard grow from July 2, 2015 to April 11, 2016.  
These photos were taken outside the Molly Pitcher rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Selfies using Fuji Film camera.  Photos taken April 18th.  At left, checking the settings.  At right, looking at camera.  
You can see how quickly the beard is growing back.  The beard was trimmed off on Monday, April 11th.
 

December 2, 2016





The person who took the
photo, a former co-worker
from Dennelisse, decided to
add Santa's hat and a
balloons to the original
photo.  

Photo taken in a Chinese
restaurant on 39th Street
in Manhattan.

The beard has been growing,
at this point, for about 8
months.

Should I let it grow
indefinitely or should I cut it
off in 4 months?

April 30, 2017 - I have not mastered the art of taking selfies.  Below you can see me on April 22nd and 23rd.  On April
12th, my beard celebrated a year of growing.  At this point, I have not decided when or if I will cut off the beard!
April 22, 2017 - Age 65
JFK Airport
AirTrain
Inside Seaborne plane, April 23rd, now 66 years.
The beard is not yellow!
September 30, 2017.  No hair on head. Beard now
growing for about 1 year 5 months, and 19 days.

March 29, 2018 at the Easter Celebration, Center Courtyard, LeFrak City.  The kids wanted to try out my camera
so I let them have it.  Here are the two photos they took of me.  They took close-up photos of each other but I lack
authorization to post them so they are not shown here or on
Page VVVVV.

The beard has been growing a little over 23 months.  Since it is
somewhat wild, I have been using rubber bands to tie it up.

The photo above, shows one of the kids' finger.  In time they will learn
how to review what they see in the viewfinder before taking the photo.

May 21, 2018 - Recently, I decided to do an ancestry DNA using Geno 2.0 (Helix) bought from
The information varies from the DNA Ancestry listed above.

Northwestern Europe - 21%  (See explanation below.)
Italy and Southern Europe - 18%
Western Africa - 16%  
(See explanation below.)
West Mediterranean - 13% ("Fused with ancestry from the Iberian Peninsula.")
North America & Andes - 8%
Northeastern Europe - 7%
Southwest Asia/Persian Gulf - 6%
Northern Africa - 5%
South American and Amazon - 4%  (See explanation below.)
Total is 98%, unless I missed something.  What group represents the missing 2%?

First Preference Population:  Bermudian

This population is based on samples collected from mixed populations living in Bermuda.  The percentages
shown here reflect Bermuda's vast racial diversity, including Africans brought during the slave-trading era
(West and central Africa, as well as Southern Africa) and European and Asian colonists and workers
(Great Britain and Ireland, Western and Central Europe, and Southern Asia).  In addition, some Native Americans
were sent as slaves to Bermuda in the 17th Century, accounting for the small Native American ancestry.  
Bermuda had no indigenous inhabitants when Europeans arrived in the 16th century.

Bermudian percentages are:  Western Africa - 54%, Northwestern Europe - 17%, Central Africa - 11%,
Southern Africa - 9%, North America and Andes - 5%, Southeastern Europe - 4%

Second Preference Population:  Colombian

This reference population is associated with groups  living in Colombia, in northern South America.  
This population is a mixture of several components, the largest of which are the Native American, associated
with the indigenous groups that first settled in the region some 12,000 years ago; and the Southern European
one associated with the centuries-long Spanish colonization of much of South America.  The sub-Saharan
African component suggests that Colombia holds a strong connection with groups introduced from Africa
during the slave trade.

Colombian percentages are:  Southwestern Europe - 39%, South America & Amazon - 19%, Western Africa - 18%,
North American & Andes - 9%, West Mediterranean - 7%, Northern Africa - 5%, Northwestern Europe - 3%.

All Greek to me.

Every area listed with percentages is explained individually.  I will only quote three such explanations.

South America & Amazon (4%):  "Despite  deep similarities between the native North American, Andean and
Amazonian groups, some distinctions doe exist among these Amerindian peoples.  Amazonian groups,
for example, share more similarities with each other than with Andean groups to the west and Mesoamerican
groups to the north.  Anthropologists still debate whether the Andes of the Amazon were settled first.  
However, most agree that the Andean region saw faster cultural growth and development, and thus saw
less isolation that groups living in the depths of the world's largest rainforest.  The isolation of Amazonian
groups for millennia, and separation from the Pacific coastal groups, let to genetic differentiation still seen in
modern-day groups.  Moreover, it was predominantly Amazonian groups that spread northward into the
Caribbean and gave rise to the Taino and Carib groups first encountered by Columbus in 1492."

Western Africa (16%):  "The West African component of your DNA has roots that are likely 100,000 years old,
spanning most of the western regions of Sub-Saharan Africa.  African  Americans, as well as other African
Diaspora groups, share this lineage.  The split between this cluster and the hunter-gatherers of the Central and
Southern African forests and deserts dates back to the "Out of Africa" event more than 60,000 years ago.  In more
recent times, farming began in Nigeria and quickly expanded east, south and then southeast.  Within the last 2,000
years, Bantu Farmers with origins in West Africa spread throughout Africa.  A mixture of resident populations,
this cluster spread with the historic Muslim expansion from the Middle East and the New World slave trade.  
Today, this ancestry is seen in people with West African roots, including Senegalese, Ghanaians, Liberian,
Guinean, and Nigerians, as well as people with more Saharan ancestry, such as those from Mali, Mauritania,
Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.  Throughout the western world, African-Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, and
Afro-Brazilians also carry this genetic fingerprint in high numbers."


This is the one that gets me:

Northwestern Europe (21%):  "This regions of Northern Europe is a biogeographical composite of populations  
that include British, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Northern French, Belgians, Dutch, Danish, and some Scandinavian
and German groups.  So, much more than established historical population, it is a prehistoric region characterized
early on by a long period of glaciation, with episodic habitation by hunter-gatherer groups migrating from the
south and east.  With the advent of agriculture and the spread of plant domestication some 8,000 to 6,000 years  
ago, the people or Northwestern Europe grew from the mix of early settlers and new farmers.  Over the last
4,000 years, the region became subdivided into the ethnic and political entities we now know.  This
biogeographical region is seen in many people of European ancestry, as well as most people living in the U.S.,
Canada, and Australia today.  It is also seen in small percentages in groups from Latin America, as well as in
countries that were part of the British Empire of the 18th and 19th centuries."

And to that I say, "WTF!?"


The results also has a "genius" category.  I will not list all the possibilities given in the report.  Information
listed states,
"National Geographic is very liberal in its definition of genius.  Since we are looking predominately
at historical figures, our definition of genius is that of "remarkable" or "historic" figure.  But, you know we are
all geniuses in our own ways."
Taken in Rego Center Mall, September 19, 2018
using cell phone (J7).  Beard growing 2 years,
5 months, and 7 days.
September 15, 2018 - Taken at registration desk of the final Spellabration
(Spelling Bee LeFrak City Library's style).  Grades Pre-K to 6

April 2019

Before - With the beard that grew from April 12, 2016 to April 18, 2019.  Was going to try for 5 years!!

After - The 3 year old beard gone!
Lumix
April 14,
2019
Gallaxy J7 Refine
April 18, 2019
Gallaxy J7 Refine
April 18, 2019

June 2019
June 8th
We Be Jammin' t-shirt bought in  Antigua.  
Long story how photo got inverted.
June 27th,
on my terrace
June 23rd, sitting on chair on front porch of The Fred

Hope I didn't scare you!!
Do I ever smile?
Blast From The Past event, LCTA/Get Right Fitness, 08/21/2019
Winner of a basket of products.  Photo by Mr. Galloway.
Left and above:  Helping out at the
library.  09/14/19

Right - At the Bird-In-Hand Bakery.  
Reading the ingredients of
cantaloupe chunks package. 09/21/19