Photos of My Tattoos

People have always asked me why I got tattooed, what was it that prompted me to get -- and keep getting -- inked. The answer is that it began when I was a boy, in elementary school...

From an early age, I was a voracious reader. I devoured books -- whole series of "young boys books", such as The Hardy Boys mysteries and Tom Swift, Jr. science-fiction -- but the series which had the most lasting effect on me was the one written by Howard Pease, between the mid-1920s to mid-1940s: the ongoing adventures of Todd Moran, apprentice seaman, beginning with "The Tattooed Man".

The series chronicled Moran's adventures, as he grew from boy to man, while shipping-out aboard one tramp steamer after another, full of intrigue and adventure on the seven seas, each port-of-call with its bars and tattoo shops.

I recently found the first three novels in the series... on eBay. Now, more than 40 years later, they read differently, but are no less gripping then when I was that little boy: sitting in my bedroom, reading them for the first time.

Arms by Master Tattoo Artist Louie Lombi; back, chest, and lower-legs by "Painless Jimmy", between July 1976 and the present...

Louie Lombi's Tattoo Paradise 5371 10th Avenue North Lake Worth, FL 33463 (561) 966-8814