Hi my name is Renee. I am not sure how to tell you this catastrophic story but my goal is to share everything I have learned so that we can help each other get through this or find some help and or support. Do you know anyone with Alzheimer’s disease? Do you have any ideas and suggestions that you would like to share? Please write me rschyjer@gmail.com with any comments, questions, ideas, and stories. I married the love of my life. He was brilliant, a genius in fact, handsome, and so loving and giving, the sweetest person you could ever meet. He was an amazing songwriter, musician and singer. We would have conversation until the early hours of the morning and being together was heavenly.
After 35 years of loving each other and marriage, we got the horrible news that Rick had Alzheimer’s disease at age 60. But 60? It is such a young age 60. Men even have kids at 60, my dad did. People don’t retire until 65. Getting this news was the saddest day of my life.
Last Thursday I skyped with the lovely Mike Stark of LA Radio Studio. It was so good to talk about Rick and reminisce about the good times actually the best times of our lives back when The Kats and The Nu Kats were playing live. here’s a link to the interview which is sooooooo cool because of the way he edited it with previous interviews that he did with Rick and we all get to hear his voice and his personality the way it used to be. Made me cry but it was so good to hear the “real” Rick. What I love about Mike is he is on team Freddy!
We have taken original band logos and put them on all kinds of cool products from tanks to sweatshirts to mugs. You may have had a Skogie tee back in the day and now is your chance to grab one again. Or enjoy some stickers or original hand drawn posters to hang on your rock concert wall.
The book is almost here! (September 14th). If you haven’t ordered yet, here is an Amazon link!
All our gratitude to Freddy’s fans near and far who have rooted us on through this entire writing and publishing process. We can’t wait to share his story with you, and we are so excited to sport our merch!
Shannon and I could not be more excited to announce the pre-order release of It’s Not a Rumour: A rock and roll journey through life and Alzheimer’s is available now at many online retailers!!!!!!
We could not be more grateful to everyone who contributed in the creation of this book. With his late-stage Alzheimer’s condition, he no longer realizes the impact of his life or his story, but Renee and I are certain he would have been so proud of how it came out. It is filled with all the adventures of his life, his heart, and chock full of memorabilia, photos, and of course, the most important thing – music.
Thank you to everyone who helped fill in stories where his memory lapsed. We hope you’ll be as proud of the end result as we are.
Please share this book with all your music-pop-culture loving friends. We appreciate you all.
As Shannon said, the other day, the book “It’s Not A Rumour” is on track to be published by Rare Bird Publishing in the Fall of 2021.
This all started in 2014-2015 when Rick was posting his stories on Facebook and Ron Manus of Alfred Music Publishing commented that he should have a blog or write a book. Ron invited us to the NAM show, which was very cool to discuss the project. It proved to be too much work to pull the stories out of Rick for Alfred Music.
After that, I thought that it would be important to get Rick’s stories in a book and at the same time help him recall memories. We had so much material; his illustrious music career, songwriting, childhood, the Alzheimer’s and our love story. Telling Shannon his stories did help his memory improve a little even though it made him emotional while working on it.
I researched co-writers and bought a book on how to write a memoir. I realized that I needed help. I contacted the L.A. Writer’s Group. Nicole Criona recommended several co-writers. We met with one at the Daily Grill in Studio City. He was arrogant and said that he would send over a couple of typists to take down Rick’s stories and then he would develop those stories into a book. Rick did not like that guy. Then I went back to Nicole and she recommended Shannon.
We met Shannon at Aroma Coffee in Studio City we had an instant connection. Shannon is beautiful inside and out and she “saw” Rick. She truly understood his vision for the book. She wanted to do justice to Rick’s vision and she did. What is amazing about Shannon is how hard she works, how she respects the stories, how much research she did and she stayed true to Rick’s vision.. She helped Rick put across his stories that were; funny, heartfelt, interesting, unbelievable, and so cool. I am positive that Rick would be proud of this book.
During the process, we would get chapters from Shannon. Rick and I would cry at some parts because the truth of his disease hit us and we cried because this was really happening to him. We laughed out loud at some chapters, we were blown away by all the life that he had lived. This book became the best way to preserve Rick’s memories which were fading. We enjoyed every minute that we spent with Shannon. She is truly a gem. We are so lucky to have found her.
The pictures above are of Shannon and me celebrating the culmination of all our hard work and dedication to this project. This book will finally be published.
Rick and I at my cousins anniversary party years ago. I don’t remember how many years but it was prior to March 2016 which was the year Rick had the brain bleed. He was wearing his stage outfit and his eyes were clear and not vacant like now. He was still Rick and not Alzheimers Rick. He hadn’t morphed into what he is now which is heart wrenching and sad. He would hate himself now and I know him, he would.
I hate Alzheimer’s for ravaging his beautiful brain.
Seeing him in this picture makes me remember what he used to be like; strong, smart, witty and loving.
