My dad, RFS JR, always told the story of Seck's grandfather, Henry Herman Schulkers who would regularly take RFS to Cuba on vacations. They would ride the train to Florida and boat to Cuba from the keys just like in the story. This accounts for some knowledge of Cuba.

Henry Herman Schulkers was a police lieutenant in the Covington force and he must have been the inspiration for the heroic Detective Jeckerson character. In several stories, RFS wrote that Judge Granberry picked Seck "Chief" of the junior police even though Dick was the captain of the club. A very similar circumstance to his father's career as " acting" Chief of Police while the real chief was elsewhere.

RFS had a brother Joe who ran away from home and disappeared must have been the stimulus for Rolling Stone Loomis. I wonder if he really did show up again, or was that just wishful writing?

There were so many requests for back issues of the stories that the book just had to be published. 1921's Seckatary Hawkins in Cuba, and 1922's Red Runners received excellent national reviews. Oddly, the syndicates that were originally offered the serial advised RFS that the books couldn't be sold. In August of 1923, RFS and Julia B drove their first car, an Oakland Touring, on what they told family was a "vacation". in 14 days, they traveled to 12 cities in the Midwest and East Coast, selling Seck to 9 newspapers. Then he signed with the Metropolitan Newspaper syndicate to handle the marketing. In 1927, RFS took back the marketing and did it himself. His friend, Carll B. Williams, director of the Enquirer art department, was the first illustrator for the books using clean little line drawings that became extremely important to the stories.

The statue bookends in the likeness of Seck were commissioned to Rookwood Pottery Co, and designed in plaster with wire reinforcements by artist William F. McDonald. Most were just ivory in color, but some were brown colored on the boots. Some club members painted their bookends in multi colors for realism.

Books were written on the huge old manual typewriters that were pure physical drudgery with every key-press. It seemed when I was a child, to take my whole body just to press down a single key, but Grandpa could tap-tap-tap away while we sat playing chess, as if it were easy. I wonder how many extra stories we would have if he had had a personal computer.

In May, 1926, RFS left the Enquirer to devote full time to Seck. He returned a short time the next year to edit the 80 page "Spirit of Cincinnati" special section for June, 1928 publication.

Also in 1928, Joe Ebertz drew a daily Seck comic strip for the Enquirer and more than 100 syndicated papers throughout the country that lasted till the mid 1930's.

The first radio shows were just on crystal radio sets (which he loved to build himself by the way and used to teach us kids how to make them too). The real radio series started in 1922 when he was doing a daily squib "Mile-a Minute-Milo" adventures of a little boy in a tiny automobile. Seck got his own half-hour radio program on Saturday nights on WLW in 1923. Many other cities that had run the newspaper stories picked up the broadcasts. Then a Tuesday evening half-hour was added on WSAI. The Milwaukee Journal's WTMJ featured him daily in the evening and for an hour on Sundays. In June, 1930, he went to daily in Cincy. RFS wrote the script himself, but confined it to dramatic reading rather than an attempt to personify each character. Sometimes his daughter Judy (Julia Beatrice) Schulkers would read the part of Tapaho's Lavaliere. Dr. Drago was a plotline on the 1930's Ralston Chicago Network. Little Flower of the Sun; The Purple light; Red Castle; Emperor's sword; etc are also described. When the programs went to NBC, they were dramatized. We have no recordings unfortunately.

PAST-TIMES:

I was so fortunate to be living for several years at Seck's house in my early life. My parents were young idealistic nightclub entertainers who couldn't afford to pay rent and needed the free baby-sitting that Julia B' and Aunt Mayme would provide. There is another sweet story to be told here, but it will have to wait till I finish this one. I rarely saw my parents in these formative years because they worked all night and slept most of the daylight when not rehearsing. It was my daily aim to hang around Grandpa's closed door until he emerged for the bathroom breaks. Once he saw me, he would peremptorily shoved me into his work room so we could talk, play chess and read together. (No-one else was allowed in). Actually, I was forbidden by my mother to "bother Grandpa", but I couldn't help it. I completely loved the man from the minute I met him and I know he had the same regard for me. I couldn't stay away. There was a bonding of boys between us, and I wanted to be just exactly like him. Now that I realize how great and productive he was, I know I will never be "exactly like him"; however, I feel him in the back of my mind every day and always try my best. That's all he ever asked of me.

So there existed our "secret arrangement" - "meet me by the old Sycamore Tree"; (His doorway was made of wood that could have been Sycamore - wasn't it?) and we will have adventures together. In this way, neither of us was at fault for breaking the house rule of leaving Grandpa alone (his own rule), because it was always a chance meeting and "just for a minute". I am not 100% sure, but I remember that Grandpa and I would spend a few hours of every day together. Some days longer than others depending upon his energy level. And once I was inside the work chambers, no one and nothing could separate us or extricate me. I was the protected member of our "club" and it was the greatest feeling of belonging that I ever knew. I pray that someday I can give such a gift to one of my grandchildren.

Chess - he liked the game and would spend hours and days teaching to me at my ages 6 to 9. I can remember him asking one question many times, "Are you sure you want to move there?" "Keep your finger on it", he would always caution. Do you think he let me win all those times?

Glass bottle altar building on his separate bedroom / den fireplace mantle with colored and clear tiny medicine bottles topped with marbles (puries, cats-eyes, tiger-eyes, etc - he knew all the names) and angel figurines. He was quite religious, and these "altars" were a break in the action of his teaching me chess or reading his new or old stories to me. He was a devout Catholic who never missed Sunday mass. I was always so proud to walk with him to the Hyde Park Town Square and sit up straight in St Mary's church for the services. Afterwards, we would always light a candle for each of us. The walk home after church always seemed to chance by the bakery or candy or ice cream stores- and we got so hungry with all that praying you know!

Stamp collecting. He tutored me on what to look for in USA and German older issues. He gave me my first stamp album when we moved out of his house into our own down on Duck Creek Road. Sadly, I only got to see him on occasional weekends after that. How I missed him! I miss him more now as I age but realize that those happy times are not gone forever, but kept safe and sound for instant recall to my mind's eye.

Ancestry- He did extensive study, research and reporting of the Darnell and Randolph lineage. He even developed into a Randolph lineage study after a chance meeting with a famous author and past Enquirer editor, George Randolph Chester. He couldn't find a connecting line with Julia B's Randolph heritage. The Randolph's of Turkey Island, VA, on the James River, might have provided some of the ideas for Seck stories. A visit there, (now Presquille island preserve, owned and managed by the US Dept of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Division), offers a history of river pirates and other recognizable situations, not the least of which is an island formed in the middle of a river where boys could spend summers camping and exploring. He could never gather much about the Schulkers clan in Germany.

Riddles:

Although he was not known as a joke teller to the general public, with us kids, he loved to recite funny lines.

a. What's round as a biscuit, busy as a bee, has a face, but cannot see?"
b. What has eight wheels and flies?
c. What is black and white and red all over?
d. Limericks: Something like the following, (please correct it if you know how):
Once was a girl in old Mackinaw
While drinking a soda she saw
Though she tried with full steam
To dislodge the ice cream
But she sucked herself into the straw.

Newspaper story he told me: "Don't drink my beer..."

When he was a young newspaperman, all the employees would stop at the local watering hole and have a few beers. It was common that many phone calls would come in for various newspapermen, so when they left their seat, the others would traditionally drink any remaining beer. Seck would put a note on his beer "I spit in this", that he thought worked rather well; because when he returned from a phone call, his beer and note were still as he had left it. One day, however, upon closer examination, there were 3 new words scribbled at the bottom of his note, "So did I".

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