do not have much in common. Though times have changed, what is essential often stays the same. These memoirs are a thrilling narrative of Alphonso A. Christian I, a barefoot boy in the most remote and undeveloped district of the United States Virgin Islands. He never had the opportunity to attend a university. He defied the odds to rise to be a judge, a commissioner, and an executive secretary of the Virgin Islands Legislature, one of the most influential United States Virgin Islands legislature positions. Alphonso A. Christian I is one of the very few who served in all three branches of government. A Renaissance man, an autodidact polymath, he taught himself three languages, never forgetting to stand grounded in family by caring for his wife and six children.

Chapter after chapter allows Alphonso, through his life experiences, to tell a local story affected to its core by national and at times, international life-changing events. He catches your attention.

Judge Alphonso A. Christian I's vignettes of his early childhood in Frederiksted, Saint Croix; his relocation to Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas; his job experiences, his family life, and his public life for seventy-five (75) of his almost ninety (90) years of existence on this earth is actual proof that every obstacle has an opportunity built in. Some walls do not need to be torn down. They need to be demolished to see the opening on the other side. Without the obstacles and the walls he encountered, he would not have realized the inner strength he so vividly describes and the determination to be true to himself. Regardless of age, race, nationality, socioeconomic status, or geographic location, every reader will be enlightened by Judge Christian's memoirs. It is a story--a testament--that you should never give up on yourself no matter what confronts you.

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