What it's like to look at your own "twin"

I started a new job this week.  On the second day of on-the-job training, a comparison was made by a co-worker that involved me, a comparison that I've heard so many times that I could say, "If I had $10,000 for every time I heard that, I might not have to work a full-time job."

What is it that I keep hearing, over and over?

"You know who you look like?"  As soon as I hear that question, I know the answer without the other person needing to say anything, but I play along with a big smile before hearing those two familiar words:  "Kenny Rogers."

Kenny Rogers in his First Edition days.

I heard it at my 25-year high school reunion.  I was voted then as the "person who's changed the most."  I grew my hair out very long for the occasion, and wore a western-style outfit with a black vest, white collarless shirt, black pants and boots.  As I walked up to get the award, someone shouted out, "I was wondering who invited Kenny Rogers!"

I've heard it at other jobs, where "Kenny Rogers" became a nickname of mine.  I've heard it at my favorite neighborhood grocery store, where the employees get to see the regular customers enough to be able to give them a nickname like one of them did with me ... "Kenny Rogers."  During a "look-alike" week on Facebook, I changed my profile picture to one of Kenny Rogers.  It even fooled a niece of mine, who asked if I'd changed my beard.

But as I told the most recent co-worker to notice the resemblance on Tuesday, there is one video out there on YouTube of Kenny Rogers and the First Edition that made me drop my jaw in amazement the first time I watched it.  It looked exactly like me from around the time I was in my mid-20s.  Everything was the same:  the hair and the way it was parted, the beard and mustache, the glasses, the smile, the way he moved his mouth when he sang, the way he moved his head.

It was ... uncanny ... eerie ... like looking at a long-lost identical twin.

Want to know exactly what I looked like in my mid-20s?  It's all there.