My story and first blog.

Hello my name is Juan Perez and I am a story teller who lives in Key West Florida. This is a brief history of myself.

I was born in Cuba in 1940 and in my youth spent much of my time at Havana harbor working on the docks for tips. I first met Papa Hemingway when I was just a small boy. Papa would send me to the local bars to get him cigars. I remember one time he even let me go fishing with him on his boat the Pilar. He had this great camera that he said he had used to photograph Nazi spies . I told him I would love to learn how to take pictures so I could make money with the tourists that came to Havana. He gave my a camera and I started taking pictures, and still do today. You can see some of my pictures hanging on the walls at Papa's house in Cuba.

When I was in my teens one of my favorite pastimes was playing baseball and I even got to play with Fidel Castro . Fidel and I became good friends but then he started getting really political and we would have many arguments. Fidel would go off in the woods and try to get as many men as he could to follow him in his quest for a new Cuba. Sometimes he would be gone for days. We had a friend named Maria that Fidel was sweet on but because he was gone so much of the time Maria and I fell in love . Fidel found out about it and I had to hide from him. It got so bad that when he started the revolution I fled the country and came to Key West.

In Key West I looked up Papa and he introduced me to many people and I started taking pictures for a living. When JFK came to Key West I was able to take pictures of him and when he found out that I knew Fidel he would sit and talk to me for hours. We became good friends and some of my pictures of him are still in the Whitehouse. JFK asked my if I would help him on a project of his . He wanted me to take pictures of the Apollo missions. Even though I wasn't an astronaut I still went up in the spacecrafts and got some great pictures, my favorite is the picture of Armstrong stepping off the lunar lander. It is a little known fact that I was really the first man on the moon.

Now most of my time is spent just hanging around the island taking pictures and telling stories. I still have some adventures and in the next few weeks I will be posting more stories.

If you ever come down to Key West look for me . My friends call me Numero Juan just ask for me.