June 21, 2018
Dear Drew,
If I haven't mentioned it to you before, I'm your grandfather.
I'm the one on your father's side of the family. We've never met, but I've been writing you and sending messages and birthday greetings to you for a dozen years now to tell you how much I love you and want to hear back from you when you can write me. I'd like to share as much as I can with you before leaving this earth and since I'm way down here in Panama and you're way up there in Dallas, it doesn't look very much like we're going to be able to meet anytime soon, so I figured emailing you was the best method.
I've dedicated this blog to you and am hoping that you will eventually find it by Googling for your name on the Internet. And if you want to learn more about my background and a little other information about me personally, please check out my website at https://rickshultz.blogspot.com/. There are a few additional pages there also, including stuff about a couple of cars I used to own (I've owned about 35 or 40 cars during my lifetime, but these two were really special): A 1966 Shelby Cobra (http://rickshultz.blogspot.com/2014/03/me-and-cobra-heres-pretty-much-history.html) and a 1967 Toyota 2000GT (http://rickshultz.blogspot.com/2014/03/once-upon-time.html).
Over the years, I kept sending notes to you in care of your father's email address or, later, to your mom's since she was the one who would write me back telling me that you and your sister and brother were just fine and loved hearing from me, etc., etc. This was all a lie that hurt me deeply when I finally figured it out.
In any case, I've been arguing with your dad now for a couple of years ever since your mom decided to break up the family and leave your dad. I'm really sorry about that but things like that happen in life and you gotta move on. But your dad steadfastly refuses to let me communicate with you making some oddball mostly illogical excuses that make no sense to me at all, but I keep trying to talk him into it. And, when I confront him with his and your mom's lies to me about sharing with you my letters, he simply refuses to say anything back.
Anyway, it's now July 2018 and I've somehow managed to make it to the ripe old age of 77 while you seem to be growing up quite nicely (I hope!) and are turning into a most handsome young man. At the tender age of 11, you should be old enough now to make some of your own decisions in life, and I'm hoping that one of those decisions will be to go against your parents' wishes and write me so we can communicate a little bit before I die.
I woke up about a week ago with a pain in my chest that seemed to pretty much come up out of nowhere and it wouldn't go away. I thought that thirty years of smoking may just finally have caught up with me. But it turned out to be … shingles! I thought only old people got shingles? Then I realized that somehow I've managed to actually become old and wasn't aware of it.
The pain bothered me for a few days until I realized that I also had a rash on my chest and put 2+2 together and spent $60 on a month's worth of medication and everything's pretty much back to normal now. But it made me realize that your dad, my son John, is simply not going to let me write you and I'm going to have to figure out another way to get the conversation going.
So this is it. I haven't written much in this blog for awhile but I'm going to begin now. Nothing right now is organized so, please, I apologize for this not being in a nice logical order but I'm pretty much winging it to try to tell you as much as I can about myself and try and answer the questions that I would have for my grandfather if I were your age and if he were trying to write me and my dad wouldn't let the messages come through.
After I put as much of this together as I can over the next few weeks, and send a similar note to your younger brothers, I'm going to tell John what I'm doing. I don't want to do that now because he'll probably tell you not to read anything from me (not that he hasn't done that already several years ago) and he may try to block my addresses or do something else silly like that and I'd rather get these online before I tell him what I'm doing.
Special note to my handsome grandson, Andrew William Shultz, or just Drew Shultz? I want this to have the best chance of being read by you and one of the ways Google uses to make sites like this blog have a higher ranking is to include other links in the text. So I'll do that by including the addresses for your brothers. The site I'm putting together for Elena Shultz, or technically Elena Margaret Shultz, is https://elenashultz.blogspot.com/. The site where I will be sending a message to your brother Devin, technically Devin Shultz, is https://devinshultz.blogspot.com/. I'll repeat this paragraph every so often and hopefully it will move things up a notch or two so you'll have a better chance of seeing my messages to you and hopefully you'll write me back. (My email address is panama.rick@ymail.com, or as an alternative, you can write me at my Google email address of rickinpanama@gmail.com.) Oh, and please let me add here that I started up a personal log for myself several years ago. Please take a look at it when you have time. It's at https://rickshultz.blogspot.com/. And one final note that I'm just completing a special new blog on your great grandfather, Mayor John W. Shultz who served in that position in the mid-1950s in my old home town of Martinsville, Virginia (where your father and Uncle Bill were born). His blog is at https://johnwshultz.blogspot.com/. Take a look please, you'll be amazed, I promise!
So, here's the note I'm getting ready to send your dad, just to give you a little background on my final say in the matter about trying to keep in touch with you guys. Later, I'll put in here the letters I've gotten from him and my replies; and I'll include the email I got from your mom, Bren, when she told me you three had seen the videos I'd made for you and enjoyed them. Again, another lie that really hurt me deeply when I finally figured it out.
Here's the note I'm currently working on to your dad:
June 11-15, 2018
Hey
I got a pain in my chest yesterday afternoon that pretty much came out of nowhere and it wouldn't go away. I thought that thirty years of smoking may just finally have caught up with me. But it turned out to be … shingles! WTF?
The pain bothered me for a few days until I realized that I also had a rash on my chest and put 2+2 together and spent $60 on a month's worth of medication and everything's pretty much back to normal now.
I remember Aunt Edna told me over the phone once that she had it and it hurt like hell. She was right. But even though the pains all over my chest almost immediately disappeared once I started on the medication, the pain in the center of my chest that's been there for at least several years is still there. I think it's a weakened part of my lungs that's susceptible to infection and that's where the virus decided to strike. Anyway, it's obvious that my time on this earth is running out so I think it's now finally time to stop pussy-footing around and write you, my first-born son, a note to say goodbye.
You and your brother have always meant so very much to me. I know you don't believe the love I've had for you both all these years, but from the moment you were born you've been the most cherished creations I've ever had the pleasure of knowing so deep in my heart. I love you so much. If only I could live my life over and change the paths we've taken just ever so slightly. Not a chance.
I'm so sorry you blame me for the pain you've eventually told me about that you and Bill felt while you were growing up. If I had only known about it, I swear I would have done something about it! But I thought everything was fine with you both. You never said anything. You never gave me the slightest hint that something was so terribly wrong.
Your mom was so worried when Fred insisted on having a child of their own. She said the doctors warned her it would not be a good idea, but she took the chance anyway because Fred insisted. Apparently that's when things started to go wrong, when JF was born, you two started feeling isolated and less a part of the family. I wish I had known, or had the sense to ask you if things were okay. I'm so sorry now that I never did.
So you grew up with a love-hate relationship with me that I didn't know anything about. All I knew was that every summer when my vacation came around, all my thoughts were on being with you and Bill. I was making decent money with Radio Shack and could have stayed in Florida at vacation time, probably getting myself into trouble at Daytona Beach or South Miami, but instead my only thought was to come see you or bring you down so you could be with me for those two weeks.
I thought we had some pretty good times together, travelling back and forth, seeing Aunt Edna, Uncle Jerry, going to Disneyworld, Daytona, the Charleston shipyards, and wherever else I could think of taking you, all because I wanted us to be together.
Then, it seems all of a sudden, you were grown up and began being more distant. You especially. When Bill wasn't doing well at Dominos and Gaga thought it was a good idea to have him come and stay with me, I was thrilled to welcome him. What a great time we had together! I'll always cherish those years.
Then when I went back to Florida with my new family, Bill was great. He took his putter to a nearby putting green and gave 8-year-old Michael a few lessons and we had a delightful time together. Two weeks later when we had gone to Orlando and got back to Boca just ahead of Hurricane Wilma, Bill had changed. It was as if he was on drugs. He was distant, wouldn't talk with Elsie or Michael, and refused to discuss the things of mine that I'd left with him when I moved to Panama. He said he didn't have time and walked away. I didn't understand. Elsie and Michael thought they'd done something wrong. I was so shocked and had no idea (and still don't to this day) know what had happened to him. All I knew was that a hurricane was coming and we had to get out of its path. And all the things I'd saved over the years, from my father and mother's possessions to all my pictures, my albums, my life itself all packed away in boxes (including one with your name on it) were hidden away from me by a son I didn't know anymore and had never seen before.
The hurricane hit and power was out everywhere. It would stay that way for two weeks. We drove up the turnpike to Orlando and spent the last week that I'd intended to spend with Bill on the south side of Orlando and far, far away from the ravages and power outages of Wilma. I've never seen nor heard from Bill again.
Meanwhile, you on the other hand had gotten married with Bren and were starting your own family. First with Elena and then with the boys, Devin and Drew. I wanted so much to get to know them and when I proposed sending them videos from down here in Panama, I was thrilled to hear back from Bren saying that you two thought it was a good idea.
I rigged up a camera and started making videos for my you and my grandkids and when Bren wrote me back to say that they enjoyed them so much and that they had questions they wanted to ask me about how I liked being in Panama, I couldn't have been happier. Joy literally filled my heart when she promised to send me videos from them! I was simply ecstatic.
But the only video you ever sent was of you and the kids at the dinner table. And, yes, it was of the children, but they were just there having fun and had no questions for me. Why not, I thought?
The thought struck me that you were lying about showing them my videos, but I tossed that out the window because I couldn't imagine that you both were lying the entire time. Whether you said anything to the kids about me, I simply don't know. Whether you actually showed them my videos or not, I doubt it. You betrayed me. You just sat back and probably laughed all day long at me and my naïveté. I wanted so much to share things with them and let them know how much I loved them and to wish them well while they were growing up.
I believed in you. It never entered my mind that you would stoop so low and lie about something that was so important to me, your father, and to your children. Nowhere in my upbringing would my parents have taught me to lie like that, most especially to a member of my own family. It would have been unthinkable. It never occurred to me, at least back then, that you would do such a mean, vicious and ugly thing to your own father.
But you did.
I really appreciate the occasional attempts you have made over the years to keep in touch. It's beginning to seem like you've been torn between this love-hate relationship you've created about me and can't decide whether to try acting sensibly like a son or irresponsibly like Bren appears to have evilly dragged you into.
So now I'm facing the fact that we all die on this planet and there isn't anything I can do about it. I'm actually surprised I've made it this long, with my mom dying at 51, my dad at 46, and cousin Jerry at 63, I guess I've been pretty lucky considering that I spent 30 years of my life constantly inhaling cigarette smoke nearly every day and practically destroyed my lungs in the process.
But incredibly here I am now at today living in Panama at the ripe old age of 77. It's amazing I'm not dead by now. But miracles never cease, I guess.
So, not to bore you any further, I wanted you to know that as much as I've always loved you and your brother, I cannot fathom the fact that you've apparently decided to hate me so much. One of the greatest joys in life that anyone can experience is to be able to be with and enjoy their grandchildren. Over and over again, as the years continue to pile up and this fragile old body of mine continues to get older, I've begged, pleaded, argued, and tried to reason with you to please let Elena, Devin and Drew communicate with me. And you've refused.
To me, your arguments make no sense. You talk about growing up and feeling alone. You classify me right along with Brenda and talk about us eroding your trust and being selfish. Yes, Brenda hurt you, intentionally. But I didn't. I can't understand why you can't make that distinction. If you felt that you were "tossed out like trash" when you were growing up, that was done in Fred and your mom's home, not mine.
As you were growing up, did you ever say anything to me about your hurt feelings? No. I promise you beyond the shadow of a doubt that I would have done something about the problem, but I simply didn't know about it because you didn't tell me. You are wrong to judge me and deliberately hurt me, as well as your children, by keeping us apart. That's the very definition of being selfish.
So I won't argue with you anymore. I give up. Time's a wasting and I'm running of it. I'm going to let your letters and my videos speak for themselves and tell the children what you've done and give them the option of forgiving you for this idiocy. I have over a half dozen blogs scattered all over the internet, and each and every one of them is going to tell my story about how I begged and pleaded to talk you into letting me communicate with my grandchildren. Do you think they won't see it? Of course they will! Remember, they are your children and my grandchildren. They're not stupid. I promise you, they will be curious enough to look eventually. And when they look, they will find out how much I've missed them over all these years. They'll get to know their great-grandfather and how he was loved as Mayor of Martinsville back in the 1950's. They'll hear stories about their great-great grandmother and how she was crowned queen of the carnival in the 1920's. How their great-great Uncle John was such a beloved and respected lawyer that his clients, even the ones in jail, gave him presents for his hard work. And, son, they will learn about how I loved you both so very much and never intended to hurt you in any way. Then let them judge which one of us is the one who has truly been selfish.
Good luck
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I'll write more in here after I get the other blogs for Elena and Devin started.
Special note to my handsome grandson, Andrew William Shultz, or just Drew Shultz? I want this to have the best chance of being read by you and one of the ways Google uses to make sites like this blog have a higher ranking is to include other links in the text. So I'll do that by including the addresses for your brothers. The site I'm putting together for Elena Shultz, or technically Elena Margaret Shultz, is https://elenashultz.blogspot.com/. The site where I will be sending a message to your brother Devin, technically Devin Shultz, is https://devinshultz.blogspot.com/. I'll repeat this paragraph every so often and hopefully it will move things up a notch or two so you'll have a better chance of seeing my messages to you and hopefully you'll write me back. (My email address is panama.rick@ymail.com, or as an alternative, you can write me at my Google email address of rickinpanama@gmail.com.)
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June 22, 2018
You'll like these! I've been able to access my old Angelfire account which is located at http://www.angelfire.com/fl/rs99cool/. There are some really cool photos in there that I want to share with you here.
When John and Bill were 2 days old and behind a glass panel in Martinsville General Hospital back in January, 1970, I took my Polaroid camera to the hospital and took this image of them both. For some reason I had black & white film in the camera. Sorry.
John is the one on the left staring at me. He was in a little better shape than Bill since he was the one on top during most of your grandmother's pregnancy, so Bill was a little scrunched when they were finally rescued by the surgeons on January 28, 1970.
Here's a great shot of the two of them. John's closest to the camera. I don't remember if it was Christmas or as a birthday present, but I sat down in the basement of our home at Chatmoss (near Martinsville) and put these peddle cars together for them. They were ecstatic to drive them around in our driveway!
After the divorce from my second wife in North Carolina, I kept in touch with both John and Bill on a regular basis and we got together every year, usually in Florida, for the two weeks of my vacation. Here are some shots of them visiting with me when I was working with the Health & Human Services in West Palm Beach:
Another shot taken in 1997 when Bill was living with me in Boca Raton and my son, Michael, from my second marriage came to visit from Australia. It was so great to have both of them together!
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Over the last few years, your father has told me that he doesn't want us to communicate with each other. I've argued until I was blue in the face but simply can't get him to understand that, if nothing else, it's against human nature to keep you and your grandparents separated. Here are some parts of a letter I wrote your father on his birthday this past January 28th, 2018:
Hello dear son,
I was thinking today about when your mother and I were driving our old green 1969 Mercedes 280 SEL to have you delivered at Martinsville General Hospital exactly 48 years ago today. It was partly cloudy, in the mid-40's, and I remember being so glad that when the time had finally come to bring you into the light of day, that it wasn't snowing or we weren't having really shitty weather.
We'd tried so hard to bring you into the world … your mother had such an irregular period that pinpointing exactly when she could conceive was more guesswork than anything else. Twins came from her side of the family, but we were both so happy to see the two of you. That also made it a lot easier to pick out your names. Our first-born got my father's first name and my mother's maiden name, and the second-born got her father's first name and her mother's maiden name. Easy. I guess if there had been only one of you, the first name would probably still have been John but I don't know about the middle name. If you had been a girl, it probably would have been Ruth Helen to take care of both of our mother's names.
That Polaroid black and white picture that I took of the two of you when you were two days old is still very precious to me, although I only have it in digital format since the original was in a box I left for Bill to take care of when I came to Panama. I wish one of you would please tell me what happened to all of the things I left with him. He was such an asshole when we were there after the hurricane. I still don't for the life in me understand what happened to him between the time we left Boca to go to Disneyworld and when we came back. It was only a week or so, but it was as if he was a different person, or had gotten into some terrible drugs, and his mind had simply gone crazy with hatred for all three of us. He wouldn't talk with me, he was rude to Elsie and Michael, and a general shit to all three of us. What the hell happened to him?
Elsie dragged me to the doctor's office the other day. Blood pressure was a little high, but not too bad. My diabetes numbers are a bit high, but pretty stable, and the rashes on my legs still come and go, but they're not as bad as they were when I first mentioned them to you a few years ago.
The only things that concern me and the main reason Elsie hauled me off to the hospital are that over the last couple of years each time I'd be sick and see a doctor, they'd say I needed to go to a cardiologist and something about my heart not sounding "right". This doctor listened and said that one of the valves in my heart sounds like it's not closing completely and she wants to do some more tests to figure out what to do about it.
She asked if I had any chest pains at all and I said, no. I don't. At least none that would be heart related. I do have a recurring pain that's so minor that I almost never notice it, but it's still there and makes its presence known every once in a while on the right side of my chest. That's the other thing that concerns me. I'm pretty sure it's in my lungs and almost certainly related to my smoking those awful cigarettes for 30 years before quitting in Florida in 1983. Nothing shows up in the X-rays they do every year or two, but you can't see too much because there's so damn much tar accumulation there from the cigarettes, even after my not smoking for 35 years now.
I went onto the web and ran some calculations to see just how much longer I probably have on this earth. On the basis of my research, I might die as early as the age of 81 and might make it to the ripe old age of 91, but more than likely if I make it to 86, I'll probably be lucky. This means that now that I'm 77 years old, I will probably leave this planet in about 9 years. That's not very long off. Funny, it's exactly when my mortgage on the house runs out. Maybe they knew something I didn't?
Sorry, I didn't mean to go on in this note all about me, it's your birthday, not mine, although I do hope you still care a little bit about how I'm doing even if you don't write anymore. But how about you? How are you and the kids doing since the Evil One left to go back to Massachusetts?
I know it's now been a couple of years since you wrote me about not wanting your children to grow up in a "broken" home like you say you and Bill did. And that that was your worst fear when it came to Bren leaving you. But what I can't understand is why you seem to want to blame me for what appears to have happened while you were living with your mom and Fred.
Honestly, as far as I was aware, the two of you were in a loving family-oriented home and Fred was treating you as if you were his own sons, even though JF had came along. Your mother was always very communicative with me, and never, ever, did she say anything at all while you were growing up about you being even the slightest bit unhappy. Not ever.
And neither did you. Every summer, without fail, you know that I scheduled my vacation to either come up to Virginia to be with you or I brought you down to Florida to be with me. Lots of times we rode together, cramped, in whatever I was driving at the time, and we'd stop off to see Aunt Edna and sometimes my Cousin Jerry in North Carolina. We always seemed to have a great time together, and it never, ever, occurred to me that you felt like you were in a "broken" home. You never said anything about it, never.
Maybe it was my fault for not asking you, or for not grilling you about it. The thought just didn't occur to me. I figured that if you weren't happy, you or your brother or your mom would tell me. Why didn't you??? You never gave me any indication whatsoever that you were unhappy while living in Fred's household. If you had done so, I would have discussed it with your mom. I would have done something, I promise! But you didn't say a damn word.
You wrote me that your worst fear is that your children are going to grow up in a split family. I'm really sorry about what happened between you and Bren, but I simply don't understand how you can in practically the same breath, justify separating your children from me. I'm your father; their grandfather; and I'm part of your family just as much as you are part of mine. Keeping me away from my grandchildren is simply creating the same "broken" relationship between me and them as you appear to blame me, and not Fred and your mom, for apparently creating with you and Bill.
I think you've gotten this idea from Brenda. She was the one who lied to me about sharing my videos with the kids, not you. She was the one who kept telling me that one of them asked about something and another asked about about something else. Then when I prodded you to send me a video from them in return, it was you who sent me a video … but it was a half-hearted gesture, the video wasn't recorded for me, it was just a video of the kids playing at the dinner table. That was the best you could do without going against the Evil Brenda while trying to accomodate me. I guess you didn't want to lie to me like Bren was doing, and you wound up being caught in the middle. I'm so sorry you got trapped like that. Maybe it really is better that she's gone. But why do you insist on making things "broken" between me and your children? That simply doesn't make any sense at all.
You, yourself, are creating a "broken" family by denying your children the opportunity to know your father. What possible purpose does this serve? What are you afraid of? Instead of being rid of her, you are perpetuating Brenda's evil venom yourself by creating an unnatural chasm between your children and their grandfather that, when they get older and figure out what you're doing, I promise they will hate you. And that is exactly what Brenda wants!
Lighten up. Give the children the opportunity to write me. Just ask them if they would like to. And don't make me the evil bastard that Bren appears to want them to believe. I'm not that person, and you know it. I didn't abandon your mother when you were kids, she and I worked things out together, and I had every intention of always being there for you as you grew up. When Martha Jo’s sister killed her boyfriend in our apartment in Martinsville, it set off a chain of events that I simply didn’t know how to handle. Leaving you and moving to Greensboro was the furthest thing in my mind, but Martha Jo insisted. That was a critical mistake that continues to haunt me to this day, but I was caught in the middle, just like you when I asked you to sending me videos from the children. But Brenda is gone now. And so is Martha Jo. If you didn't already know, Martha Jo died last July.
About the collection departments looking for me. I did my best to shield you from that by leaving false addresses all over the place when I left Florida. Apparently it wasn't enough, and I'm really sorry you had to go through the hassles with the skip tracers who were chasing me. I wouldn't have done that at all if I hadn't lost $80,000 in a deal while I was trying to raise $300,000 to buy some property here and was playing the options market. I made $10,000 in one afternoon and thought I had the system down pat. Then I lost everything I'd made from the sale of my condo and the money I was planning on using for my retirement that was coming up in one year, and I only had about $20,000 left in the bank. I did what I had to in order to have enough to live on when I got to Panama. I'm really sorry you got caught up in the smokescreen.
The 10 year statute of limitations is way over now. My credit in the states is fine. The banks all got their money back. Their insurance paid my debts off when they expired just as I figured they would do. The banks expect people to default, and that's why they carry the insurance. But they have to make an effort to collect their money, and that's why they hire skip tracers to go after it. These people are on commission, that's why they're such assholes. Again, I'm sorry you had to put up with all that shit. I didn't know they'd chase after you when they couldn't find me. I should have warned you, but I didn't. I'm really sorry.
But like I said, the 10-year time limit is over, and my credit is in the 700's with no debts showing up. I also completely took care of the IRS 7 or 8 years ago and they know exactly where I am and don't care anymore. My case is completely closed with them, otherwise they would hassle me with my monthly Social Security deposits, which they don't.
What happened between us? I know it's complicated and involved with me making a lot of mistakes. Where did things go so awfully wrong? Isn't it time for us to put an end to all this silliness and find a way to fix things. Please.
I love you. I hope your birthday is immensely happy. Tell the children I love them, please. I don't know how much more time I may have left on this earth and I think you're doing us all a monumental disservice by keeping us apart.
Love always & forever,
Yours faithfully and sincerely,
Pop
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So, anyway, onward with my message to you, Drew!
I don't know if you're aware of the videos I made for you and uploaded to YouTube several years ago. I'm going to try to list them here for you and if you haven't already seen them, I'd like for you to do that and send me your thoughts since they were made specifically for you and your sister and brother.
I've found a list of the videos in a message I sent to your mom back in 2015. Here's the message:
Did you share the videos I sent you of the children’s great grandfather? I had no idea they existed until I stumbled across an archive of news videos last month taken by a local TV station in Roanoke of my father when he was mayor of Martinsville. I can’t fathom how great a deal that would have been for me if I could have seen something like that of my great grandfather when I was their age!
Brenda, do your children even know their grandfather is alive? Over the years you’ve assured me that they were seeing all the messages and birthday greetings I was sending them. I never had any reason to think that they weren’t. Tell me I'm wrong, or tell me what's going on. Please.
Your children are smart and inquisitive. If they’re like most kids their age, they spend too much time on the Internet. One of these days in the not too distant future, Elena or Devin or Andrew is going to come across the videos I’ve recorded for them, if they haven’t already. I urge you to consider how this is going to play out. I will eventually communicate with my grandchildren, and I would like it to be with your help. As they continue to get older, it’s impossible to assume they won’t eventually find my videos on YouTube or Vimeo or half a dozen other sites where they are in plain view for anyone to see with just a simple click of a mouse. When they see these videos, and I assure you they will, what sort of questions do you think they’ll be asking you? What are you going to say when they ask you about them? My videos are not going to go away:
Happy Birthday Elena.wmv - Nov 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqjM7q_DIiw
Happy Birthday Andrew - 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAgliy-2g8I
Brenda & John 001 - 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgXxjqRdQhw
Brenda & John 002 - 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_nBAoSbs14
Brenda & John 003 - 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDuW1cbJJoQ
Brenda & John 005 (MP4) - 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35rUVRtzmAo
Brenda, please, I want us to remain friends. Do the right thing for your children and me - let us communicate. I beg and implore you, from the bottom of my heart, to please give my direct offspring, my blood grandchildren, the opportunity to write me and establish the bond we deserve to have with each other. Your children carry my genes and my blood, and we deserve to know each other as much as possible before I die. Let it happen. Please.
Love to you all (I mean it!)
Grand Pop
【ツ】Rick
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June 22, 2018
I am having trouble thinking of a single solitary reason to send this letter to your father. All it will do is to make him angrier at me, possibly you, and want to figure out a way to keep you from seeing this message. So, I'm going to leave things as they are and not send the note to him that's at the beginning of this blog. It'll keep things calmer and my goal for you to eventually find and read this will have a better chance of succeeding.
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June 23, 2018
Well, we're not there yet, but we're getting very close. I've Googled both Elena and Devin and their images show up from the blogs I've created for them. However, yours doesn't, at least not yet. I'm hoping it will, eventually. BUT, YOUR IMAGE does appear in their searches!!! So here's a screen grab from Google when you click on your image in Devin's results:
I'm very excited! I hope you find this blog and will write me back. I'll keep working on it, okay?
I love you very much, Drew. Please write me. I'd love to get to know you better and learn all about you and what you like to do and ... well, everything about you!!!
I love you!
Your Granddad Rick【ツ】
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Oh, I'm so excited! Your father has emailed me a link today to his Adobe Lightroom account and has told me you've taken up the alto saxophone! This is so thrilling to hear! Has he told you that I took up the alto saxophone in the 7th Grade after fumbling around with first the trumpet (along with 23 other trumpet players in the band) and then the baritone (I used to chase the Easter chickens we kept one year with it), and finally Ralph Shank, the band director, suggested the saxophone. I took to it like a duck to water and by the time I was out of high school, I had 4 Virginia All-State Band 1st Places under my belt and the top school band award at our high school. I wish you the best. Boy would I love to come hear you play!!! Here's a shot from the Lightroom account! Happy playing!!!
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Special note to my handsome grandson, Andrew William Shultz, or just Drew Shultz? I want this to have the best chance of being read by you and one of the ways Google uses to make sites like this blog have a higher ranking is to include other links in the text. So I'll do that by including the addresses for your brothers. The site I'm putting together for Elena Shultz, or technically Elena Margaret Shultz, is https://elenashultz.blogspot.com/. The site where I will be sending a message to your brother Devin, technically Devin Shultz, is https://devinshultz.blogspot.com/. I'll repeat this paragraph every so often and hopefully it will move things up a notch or two so you'll have a better chance of seeing my messages to you and hopefully you'll write me back. (My email address is panama.rick@ymail.com, or as an alternative, you can write me at my Google email address of rickinpanama@gmail.com.)
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