{"id":10900,"date":"2026-02-01T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T10:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/?p=10900"},"modified":"2026-02-02T17:28:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T17:28:29","slug":"february-2026-newsletter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/?p=10900","title":{"rendered":"February 2026 Newsletter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Another in our series\u2026<\/h3>\n

The People of the Park<\/h1>\n

A Visit with the Heinzes<\/h1>\n

By Dale Dauten<\/h4>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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When I visited with Susan and Paul Heinz, I initially thought that I was going to get to write an \u201copposites attract\u201d story. After all, she was a big city girl who became a self-described \u201ceducation junkie,\u201d with a Master\u2019s Degree and multiple additional professional certificates, and he was a farm kid who couldn\u2019t wait to get out of high school and join the Navy. But the more we talked, the less opposite they seemed. Here\u2019s some more of their story \u2013 see what you think.<\/p>\n

(Photo: Paul and Susan about to head to a dance at Silveridge)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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PAUL<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with Paul. He grew up near Groton, South Dakota, a town with a population of 2,200 and a high school class of 80. A class he quickly left behind as he headed off to the Navy, where he served for four years, mostly on the USS Robison, a destroyer out of San Diego.<\/p>\n

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Should you care to visit the USS Robison, put on your scuba tank \u2013 after being decommissioned, the hull was sunk off the coast of South Carolina as part of an artificial reef project.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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The one person we know who will NOT be diving down to visit that artificial reef is Paul \u2013 despite his years in the Navy, he\u2019s never learned to swim. Naturally, we wanted to know,\u00a0How is that possible?\u00a0After basic training, he was sent to a school for non-swimmers, and there the trainer explained that they didn\u2019t need to know how to swim, but rather, how not to drown. So, they spent two weeks being \u201cdrown-proofed.\u201d Along the way, the trainer told the class that, given their new drown-proof skills, if they were to be in the open ocean waters, \u201cMark Spitz wouldn\u2019t survive, but you guys will.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After the Navy, Paul became a Deputy Sheriff back in South Dakota, grew frustrated at the pay levels available, and ended up instead in a 30-year career in the petroleum industry, working with pipelines and in Terminal Operations. We know that oil companies buy each other\u2019s assets, but in Paul\u2019s case, it was extreme \u2013 while working at the same jobs\/facilities, he was an employee of Amoco, then BP, Valero, Tesoro, and others. Eventually, his group became part of the Circle K organization, which meant work trips to Phoenix. More on that, later.<\/p>\n

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Paul also spent 22 years in the Army Reserve, where he began with an Artillery Unit but managed to get reassigned to the Transportation Unit. He\u2019d joined the Navy to see the world, but only got to see Southeast Asia (where the Vietnam War was winding down); however, the oil industry and the Reserves took him to all those places he\u2019d longed to visit \u2013 from Jamaica to Germany, from the Philippines to Ireland.<\/p>\n

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Along the way, Paul was also growing a family: he has two sons and a daughter, all living in South Dakota along with Paul\u2019s 10 grandkids (and soon to be 12, as one son and his wife are about to adopt two more).<\/p>\n

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SUSAN<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, let\u2019s catch up with Susan. She grew up in a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minnesota called Shoreview. I mentioned that she\u2019s an \u201ceducation junkie\u201d — she got a degree in Special Ed from St. Cloud State, then a Master’s in Education from St. Mary\u2019s, then a pair of professional licenses. With that background, it won\u2019t surprise you to learn that she had a 36-year-long career in Special Ed. I\u2019ve often thought that you have to be an angel to work in Special Ed, and when I asked Susan to reflect on her years in that work, it reinforced my view. A couple of examples.<\/p>\n

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Susan\u2019s first job was a class of 12 \u201ckids\u201d \u2013 they were in their mid-twenties when Susan was just 23. They were non-verbal and didn\u2019t even have basic toilet skills. Susan said of that first job, \u201cI cried every night. BUT, I loved them.\u201d She recalled working with one of her early favorites, a girl named Sheila: \u201cShe didn\u2019t talk; she constantly made the same noises.\u00a0(Susan made a pair of grunting sounds in imitation.)\u00a0I loved her and would take her places with me. I once took her along to a friend\u2019s bridal shower. I couldn\u2019t find her, and eventually I discovered her in the bathroom, eating a roll of toilet paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Undeterred by such episodes, Susan ended up spending 22 years of her career on Special Assignment, working at HarMar Mall, teaching independent living to young adults. She\u2019d teach kids with developmental issues to get a job, live on a budget, do laundry, cook meals, and master bus routes. She recalled one learning trip where they took a group on a bus trip to Duluth and stayed in a hotel. The kids had money and were to budget that money, paying for their expenses. Susan soon discovered that they had given in to the craze of the times and they\u2019d spent their money buying Beanie Babies. That, the students soon learned, meant they didn\u2019t have money for lunch or dinner. \u201cWhat are you going to do?\u201d Susan asked them. (She added, saying of herself, \u201cI\u2019m a tough love kind of girl.\u201d) Eventually, her group realized they could return the Beanie Babies and thus once again have money for food.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Susan in her teaching days, welcoming an energy drink<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Early in her career, Susan lived out one of those stories that make you think the universe is secretly making advance plans for us: when Susan had her first child, he not only had major vision problems but ended up in Special Ed. \u201cThat\u2019s when I really understood the work — I learned more from him than I taught him,\u201d Susan added. That son is now 44, and blind, but living happily, with a thriving career as a massage therapist. Susan also has two other children, both boys, and all three sons live in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

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TOGETHER<\/p>\n

We still need to get Susan and Paul together \u2013 and this isn\u2019t one of our rom-com connection stories. The two met 12 years ago, and they did it the new-fashioned way: online. It turns out that Paul\u2019s work had led him to move to the Twin Cities for the latter part of his career, and both were single again. Both turned to Match.com. They dated for several years and married in 2020, during Covid.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Once they\u2019d married and both retired, they decided to add a winter home, and, given that Paul had gotten to know Phoenix from his days with Circle K, they followed friends to Silveridge. They also experimented with how to live back in Minnesota in the summers, moving four times in five years till they settled on a place called Square Lake.<\/p>\n

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As for their time at Silveridge, they are active volunteers, doing donut runs every other week and volunteering in the kitchen — as Paul describes it, \u201cWhatever they tell us, we do it.\u201d They also volunteer at Bingo, and Susan helps in the Library. Their favorite activity at the park? \u201cI love the dances,\u201d Susan replied. \u201cI could dance all night long.\u201d<\/p>\n

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So, back to where we began: While they seemed to come from those opposite backgrounds, they ended up together by sharing the same love of being active and an \u201cup for anything\u201d openness that makes them seem very much alike, as we see reflected in the photos below.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Another in our series\u2026 The People of the Park A Visit with the Heinzes By Dale Dauten When I visited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10900"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10900"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10903,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10900\/revisions\/10903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}