I was mostly homeless starting 2000 and going into 2005, because I gave a lot of money to my third wife and her son, when she and I broke up in 1995 ...
Pressed by angels in my dreams, in 2003, I legally changed my name back to Sloan Young Bashinsky, Jr.
My father died in late August 2005, when I was just barely not living on the street. In his Last Will and Testament, each my father's four children were to receive $1,000,000 cash.
I moved to Birmingham, and stayed in the home of friends. Johan McKleroy gave me a copy of my father's will, and I gave it to a lawyer buddy, read the will and told me there was a codicil (amendment) dated maybe a little under year before my father died. The codicil Joann $14,000,000 cash.
I told my lawyer friend that I thought my father had been an invalid for several years with round the clock in home care, mostly due to spinal degeneration, which caused a lot of pain, which was eased by a morphine pump.
My lawyer friend said the codicil didn't smell right to him. I said it didn't smell right to me, either.
My father had left Joann a ton of money in the Marital Trust of his will, and when he died, she stepped into his shoes to receive SYB, Inc.'s considerable preferred stock dividends.
I thought my lawyer friend was just itching to challenge the codicil on the grounds of drug impairment and undue influence.
My father came to me in a dream and said he had not had time to take care of everything he wanted to take care of. I woke up, thinking it was just like him, to make up a lame excuse, and in that way hint I should do something about the codicil.
I stood to gain nothing from challenging the codicil. If it was voided by a court, the $14,000,000 would still be in my father's estate, and all I would get was $1,000,000.
I sent Joann an email, in which I pointed out that she was well provided for by my father, and his grandchildren had inherited nothing under his will. I asked Joann to give the $14,000,000 to my father's grandchildren and to Travis, equally. Joann blocked me from her email.
Oh, well. I had tried.
John McKleroy gave me a check for $1,000,000 on February 14, 2006- Valentine's Day.
I gave $200,000 to a good woman friend, who was dirt poor and had been my spirit friend since early 2005, when we met quite by accident. I bought a car and went back to the Florida Keys, and rented a trailer on Little Torch Key, which I then bought and paid way too much for it.
I got deeply involved in Florida Keys and Key West politics, ran for county commission and then mayor of Key West, and then county commission again. That was costing some money, but I was not living extravagantly.
My woman friend blew through what I had given her, and I was giving her more money. I made hefty donations to a family in dire need and to an outfit trying to slow down real estate development on the Florida mainland. I was the only candidate for public office in the Florida Keys trying to put Mother Nature ahead of the invasive species, humans.
I moved back to Key West for three years, and kept running forf office. Then, I moved back to the trailer, and kept running for office. It looked nuts, I suppose, to other people, but angels were pushing to keep running for office, and to keep writing on blogs I had created: goodmorningfloridakeys.com and goomorningkeywest.com, which enjoyed a good local following.
By 2014, I was running low on money. In a dream, my father said his time table was different from mine. The bottom had dropped completely out of the real estate market, and I sold my land and the trailer at about a $250,000 loss. I walked away with $90,000. I gave my friend $20,000. Later, I gave my friend more money.
I rented a room in a home in Key West, where I had rented rooms in the past.
I sold my car.
By 2016, except for a little over $800 per month Social Security benefits, I was out of money.
Excerpt from my blog, goodmorningkeywest.com (which died the next year and went somewhere):
Text of email from me to John McKleroy, attorney for my father’s estate and business affairs; John and I attended law school and tax law school together at the University of Alabama:
7/4/2016
Good afternoon, John –
Hope all okay with you.
I know you probably cannot comment on what follows.
A while back, I started receiving inquires re GE (Golden Enterprises) stock price rising. I said I knew nothing that might explain it, which was true, other than it looked to me someone was taking a position in GE common stock for reasons unknown, because the company’s profits are not going up to explain the common stock price increase.
Inquires continued coming to me, as GE common stock price kept rising, and I gave same response.
I did from time to time speak with former GF (Golden Flake) employees, who said they did not know why GE common stock price was rising.
After yet another inquiry this past Friday, re GF common stock being over $7 a share, a huge rise, relatively, since the first of the year, I called the same former GF employees. Here’s what they said they had heard on the GF grapevine (from inside GF, rank and file employees).
3 companies, Snyder, Mexico Coke and Utz, were negotiating for GE. Mexico Coke pulled out. Snyder missed the cut, got bent out of shape and stopped selling its pretzels to GF. The apparent winner Utz is trying to get more information about GF’s deals with its customers and is having trouble getting that information because GF recordkeeping not all that good. Closing expected next month. Buy out price, $16 per share GE common stock. Mark McCutcheon has negotiated a golden parachute for himself.
I told the former GF employees this is all handed down, and who knows what really is going on? However, I said, I did not think someone trying to buy GE, thus GF, would be taking a position in its common stock before the purchase, because that would be costly if the purchase did not go through. Rather, I think GE common stock price rise is due to insider trading, or insider information being leaked to people not working for GF/GE. I told the former GF employees, if they buy GF common stock now, they will be viewed as insiders doing insider trading, and they could go to prison, so don’t buy GF common stock now, and don’t tell relatives and friends to buy it.
I own no GE common stock, nor any interest in GE/GF, other than provided in my father’s estate plan. I will not be buying GE common stock. I am not telling anyone to buy it.
I suppose the GE Board of Directors needs to be apprised of what I wrote above, in case it is not old news to them.
Thanks,
Sloan
Backstory, not shared with John McKleroy:
About a month ago, my father came to me in a dream and looked me in the eye and shook my hand, and he came to me in a dream about a week ago and told me he would settle in full with me in 4 1/2 years, and I needed to talk to Joann (his 2nd wife, widow). SYB Common Stock Trust, holding stock in SYB, Inc. Common Stock Fund, which owns Golden Enterprises and other common stocks, terminates December 31, 2020, 4 1/2 years from now. Not clear yet what talking with Joann means. She is my father’s widow, his 2nd wife.
Sloan:
I hope you are doing well.
Attached you will find a copy of a Press Release concerning the merger of Golden Enterprises (Golden Flake) with Utz Quality Foods, Inc. of Hanover, Pennsylvania.
A Special Committee of the Board of Directors of GE consisting of Independent Directors, along with their engaged financial advisors and outside legal counsel, have been working on this matter for some time.
The Special Committee, its financial advisors and outside counsel, along with the Board of Directors of GE, believe this merger is in the best interest of the Company, its stockholders and employees.
This transaction will not affect your distribution from your father’s Marital Trust (at Joann’s death) or your distribution of one-fourth of the Common Stock of SYB, Inc. This transaction will create more investment liquidity for SYB, Inc.
I am working on the other questions you recently put to me concerning SYB, Inc. and should have a response to you in the next few days.
Very truly,
John
Attachment:
Mark McCutcheon, CEO Golden Enterprises, Inc. One Golden Flake Drive Birmingham, AL 35205 Phone 205 323 6161 Fax 205 458 7335 Golden Enterprises, Inc.
BIRMINGHAM, AL and HANOVER, PA, July 19, 2016 / PRNewswire / — Golden Enterprises, Inc. (the “Company”) (NASDAQ: GLDC) and Utz Quality Foods, Inc. of Hanover, PA (“Utz”) announced that they entered into a definitive merger agreement on July 18, 2016, pursuant to which Utz will acquire the Company and Company stockholders will receive $12.00 per share in cash. This price represents a premium of approximately 71 percent over the Company’s 30-day average closing trading price of $7.00.
“After conducting a review of strategic alternatives by a Special Committee consisting of independent members of the Company’s Board of Directors, we believe that this is an excellent transaction for our stockholders, our customers and our employees,” said Mark McCutcheon, Chief Executive Officer of the Company. “This merger will allow the Golden Flake brand to continue to grow in our core southeastern markets, while expanding the product selections for our consumers. Utz is a very community oriented company and we look forward to the future that Utz and Golden Flake will create together.”
Utz Quality Foods, Inc. is a privately held snack food company, founded in 1921 by William and Salie Utz. They began making potato chips out of their home in Hanover, in much the same way Frank Mosher, Mose Lischkoff and Helen Freidman began Golden Flake in 1923. The Bashinsky family began their snack food legacy when they purchased the business in 1946. During their tenure the Company grew from a small local operation to the multi-state corporation it is today.
“We are excited about the opportunity to partner with Golden Flake,” said Dylan Lissette, Chief Executive Officer of Utz. “The two companies are very similar both in mission and values, and each has a team of dedicated associates. Golden Flake’s product line, market coverage, and manufacturing facilities blend well with Utz’s desire to expand and grow our markets in the south.” Both management teams recognize the value of the “plus one strength” gained from the synergies of each company. The Golden Flake product lines and production capabilities will complement the Utz product portfolio, which includes Utz, Zapps, “Dirty”, Bachman, Wachusett, Snikiddy and Good Health.
“Our company has viewed Golden Flake as a leader in the industry. Their culture, quality line of products, and dedicated people, through the vision and leadership that Mr. Bashinsky established, is a wonderful fit within our company,” said Mr. Lissette. Golden Flake will operate as a separate subsidiary under the leadership of its current management team and continue to be an important part of Birmingham as “The South’s Original Potato Chip!”
Subject to antitrust approval and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions, the transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2016. Following the execution of the merger agreement, stockholders representing a majority of the voting shares of Golden Enterprises delivered a written consent approving and adopting the merger agreement. The merger agreement includes a three-day period during which the Company’s Board can consider an unsolicited alternative proposal that it concludes in good faith (after consultation with outside legal counsel and the financial advisor) is more favorable from a financial point of view to the stockholders of the Company than the transaction contemplated by the merger agreement.
North Point Advisors, LLC acted as financial advisor to the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of Golden Enterprises. Sirote & Permutt, PC acted as legal counsel to the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of Golden Enterprises. Sandler O’Neill acted as financial advisor to Utz. Cozen O’Connor acted as legal counsel to Utz.
NOTE: This press release contains forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include the possible benefits of the proposed Golden Enterprises acquisition to the Utz business. Readers are directed to Golden Enterprises’ periodic and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a description of such risks and uncertainties. Neither Golden Enterprises nor Utz undertakes any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
I tried to persuade John McKleroy, and his client, Joann Bashinsky, to use the very large sum of money SYB, Inc. had received from the Utz purchase, to pay dividends on SYB, Inc.'s common stock.
My brother Major and my stepsister Suzanne had died in 2010 and 2011 respectively, and their children had stepped into their shoes as beneficiaries of SYB Common Stock Trust. My sister and I were the other trust beneficiaries.
McKleroy replied that they were going to keep all the Utz money in SYB, Inc. and invest it.
I ran out of money and was homeless, again.
A friend took me into his home on Cudjoe Key. During that time, Key West Transit Authority ran buses up US 1 to Marathon and back to Key West, and that's how I got to Key West every day and back to my friend's home at night.
I hung out most days at Sippin' Internet Cafe and Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. At Sippin', I wrote my daily blog. At Fort Zach, I laid back, took naps and watched sea and land birds. Whenever I saw a man o' war bird, also known as the frigate bird, I knew I soon would be spiritually attacked.
After maybe 2 months of living in my friend's home, I felt it was time to suck it up and stay nights in Key West's homeless shelter on Stock Island, the next island up US 1.
After about three months of that, friends, who published boat-rocking Key West the Newspaper, aka The Blue Paper, let me live for free in an efficiency in their home.
After a year, they told me they needed their flat for something else, and I had to leave. By then, I was banned from the homeless shelter for life, because of what I had written on my blog about the shelter and homeless people.
I went to a city commission meeting, and during closing citizen comments I told the mayor and city commissioners, who knew me pretty well, what was going on. I said I was headed to the Key West police station, to try to sleep there, or be put in the county jail on Stock Island, because it was illegal to sleep outside at night.
Perhaps the city attorney, whom I knew and liked, or the commissioner, who was my attorney and friend, called or emailed the police station to let me sleep there at night. Else, I might sue them in federal court.
Back in 2004, when I was homeless, my attorney friend and I had convinced the city government, if its police continued arresting and jailing homeless people for sleeping outside at night, we would put them in federal court under what was known as "the Pottinger case", in which a federal judge had stopped the city of Miami from using its police to put homeless people in jail for sleeping outside. The same federal court had jurisdiction over Key West, and there was a federal courthouse in Key West. I would have been the plaintiff in that case. The city caved and built the homeless shelter on Stock Island.
Back to 2016, where I was banned for life from the homeless shelter I was 50 percent responsible for being built.
The Key West Citizen published an article, in which the city's official spokesperson was quoted as saying, if Sloan is banned from the shelter, the city has to let him sleep somewhere, at the police station, on a park bench, etc.
My friend in whose home I had lived, bought me a foam sleeping mat to put between my body and the hard, steel bench in the police station lobby.
After about 2 weeks, they locked the bathrooms in the front lobby at night. When I woke up needing to pee, I got up and walked over to nearby mangrove bushes and relieved myself. Fortunately, I never woke up needing to poop.
People came there at all hours of the night with some kind of problem.
The only money I had coming in was my Social Security, about $875 per month. I used almost all of it to buy food. A friend in Key West let me store my belongings on his front porch. He gave me money to buy a fleece sleeping bag for cold nights. He bought me a year's pass to Fort Zach, where Key West police didn't go. And, he gave me money to buy a hammock to use at Fort Zach.
In August 2017, I had dreams that caused me to approach John McKleroy about loaning-advancing me $500,000 of a second $1,000,000 inheritance my father had left to his children at Joann's death. I hired a lawyer, with whom I had practiced law for a while. When he stopped communicating with me, I dealt directly with John and his law firm.
Finally, they offered to loan me $3,000 a month, bearing interest, against my second $1,000,000 inheritance, in exchange for my agreeing in writing to never write about Joann Bashinsky again, and to never to get involved in any way in any litigation in which she was a party, and if I breached the agreement, the loan and interest on it would become immediately due and payable, and I would receive no more money.
I agreed to those terms and soon I had enough money coming in to rent the flat in my blue paper friends' home and buy food and other things I needed, and save money.
After running for mayor of Key West the next year, 2018, the sixth time I had run, I moved back to Alabama, prelude to the grand finale in my father's estate plan.
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