Easter ‘24

A curious Easter Bunny

A wonderful family tradition

McDonald's Grandma McFlurry Review

We had a chance to try the Grandma McFlurry at McDonalds recently.  It didn't look nearly as nice as the picture in a small paper cup.  The consensus was you would be better off (taste and financially) with a caramel sundae.

The advertisement's photo far exceeds reality.

Gator Bullseye!

The moved Bullseye from the Target by UF that shut down to the only other Target in town.  I still convinced Elle to sit for a pic!

Spark Plug Change in the 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee

We were due for new spark plugs in the 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7L.  The big engine meant 16 plugs!  The dealership wanted $599 to do it but Jack wanted to try to do it himself.  The parts were $150.  $100 for the plugs and $50 for a torque socket set.  We went for it and Jack did it all himself with limited supervision and for sure did a better job than what we would have gotten at the dealer.

Cat Stole Mat!

Petey wasn't to keen that Elsa snuck in and laid on his mat in the office....

Monkey Quote!

Pup Cup!

Dual dogs!

Saw these dogs in a van waiting patiently!

Stories from Rick

Rick graduated from North Muskegon High School in 1964. Started college at a community college in 1965. His car of choice, at the time was a '55 Chevy.  There is a great framed 8" x 10" of him and the car that his brother Dave took around '65.  The other cool framed photo Rick has is of his Dad's Grand Haven intramural basketball team in 1935.  His Dad is seated on the bottom left in the photo.  He bought the car used and fairly souped up!  He was drafted in the Summer of  '66 after he dropped a class in college and was no longer considered a full-time student.  He put the Chevy in storage when he went to Vietnam and his Dad sold it for him while he was oversees.  Did ~6 months of basic training in Kentucky before heading to Denver for a ~6 month stint. Then sent to Vietnam as part of the military police and served there from Summer of '67 until Summer of '68.  He was 22 when he was in Vietnam.  Barb's brother Bob was only 18 when he was there.  Was excited we he received notice he was to come home early (about 5 weeks early) because there happened to be space on a return flight. Flew into Traverse Air Force Base in Northern California. Hung out with his cousin in San Francisco (even visited Haight-Ashbury district) before his Mom insisted he come back to Michigan. One of his most-remembered songs from the era was "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)". The song was produced and released in May 1967. The song became one of the best-selling singles of the 1960s in the world, reaching the fourth position on the U.S. charts and the number one spot on the U.K. charts.

The other cool framed photo Rick has is of his Dad's Grand Haven intramural basketball team in 1935.  His Dad is seated on the bottom left in the photo.

Rick recalled the time he want to visit his grandparents in Grand Haven – they made him a grilled cheese sandwich with cheddar cheese, rye bread and real butter…. Instead of oleo and fake cheese which was the norm in his household.   He thought he had died and gone to heaven.

To this day, one of the most vivid memories in Rick's life was the morning he was woken up by a clerk and told he was going home - the orders had just arrived.  It was a nice surprise as they were about 8 days early.  The song has been called "the unofficial anthem of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, including the Hippie, Anti-Vietnam War and Flower power movements." Ironically, Rick said the summer had a double meaning to soldiers in Vietnam because if you were going to San Francisco it typically meant you were going home.

When he arrived home and walked up to his house his dog Oswald heard him approaching the door and started barking.  Rick told him "no barking" from the other side of the door and upon hearing his voice he started whimpering in excitement.

Upon arriving back in Michigan one of the first things he did was buy a '68 SS Chevelle 396 for ~$3050. It was matador red with a white racing stripe and a black top. That Fall he enjoyed going to visit his sister Sandy at Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. He recalled it being like "candy land" with lots of girls his sister introduced him to.

He met Barb in a bar called Gomely's in Norton Shores. Barb got he her friends to go tell him she wanted to dance with him. Got engaged on November 14, 1969.  Rick popped the question in the house of one of Barb's friends but delivered the ring a bit later in a Burger Chef restaurant.

That morning was the kick-off of deer-hunting season and he went with his Dad and a friend at 5:30. This, after getting home from a night out with Barb 'til ~4:30! They tied the knot on June 12, 1970 at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church.

In 1979 Rick and Barb bought a '79 Pontiac Grand Prix in Glacier Blue.  It was mainly Barb's car and they kept it for quite a while.  In fact, Jennifer learned on it when she was learning to drive and to Rick's dismay she had the bumper off within 2 weeks.  The family car was like the below.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Elle and a rat!

The Boy and His Dog!

Counting Crows in St. Augustine

We got to see the Counting Crows in St. Augustine earlier this Summer (August 8) and it was an excellent show.   They included their latest EP Butter Miracle, Suite One in its entirety.  Hard Candy and St. Robinson were excellent tunes to kick it off with.

2023 Mixed 6.0 Champions

Had a fortune of being on an extremely strong 6.0 mixed team that won the Florida section championship and got to advance to the national championship in AZ

Concerts I've Been To...

Lots of updates from summer concerts :)   Big lull in 2020 and 2021.... Thanks COVID

ROBERT'S LIST
____________________
Garth Brooks - Show 2 of 6 in Sacramento '15)
Journey (Salt Lake City '15)
Information Society (Sacramento '15)
Book of Love (Sacramento '15)
Men Without Hats (Sacramento '13)
Berlin (Sacramento '13)
Andy Bell / Erasure (Sacramento '13)
Jessie Cook (Folsom '13)
Branford Marsalis (Folsom, '13)
Elton John - April 19, 2012 at Caesar's Palace
Eels
Smoosh - they opened for the Eels, lots of critical acclaim. We were not impressed - 1/10
The Cure (x2)
The Eagles (x2) - once in Lake Tahoe with full moon rising, April 21, 2012 at MGM/Vegas
Nitzer Ebb - Opened for DM
Depeche Mode - Atlanta, June 4, 1990
New Found Glory
The Go-Gos
The B-52s
Blink 182
Magnapop
Ingram Hill
Rick Springfield
Simple Minds
The Beach Boys (multiple times)
Jesus and Mary Chain
R.E.M.
Fleetwood Mac
U2
Gwen Stefani
James Taylor x 2
Howard Jones x 2 (once in Detroit in '98, once in Sacramento in '13)
Culture Club
Human League
Don Henley
Gin Blossoms x 2 (Reno and Folsom in October '14)
Cheap Trick
John Mayer
Counting Crows x 2
Third Eye Blind
Rob Thomas
Anna Nalick
The Goo Goo Dolls x 2
Eric Bibb
Etta James
Buck 65
Gomez
Sammy Hagar
REO Speedwagon
Train
The Rolling Stones
Dave Matthews Band
Bad Company
Daughtry
Madonna
Steven Tyler
Fall Out Boy

Rebelution - June 2, 2022 in St. Augustine - first post-COVID Show

Steel Pulse - opened for Rebelution

Counting Crows - August 8, 2023

Dashboard Confessional - opener for Counting Crows

BILL'S LIST
_________________
Don Henley
The Oak Ridge Boys
The Beach Boys
The Cure
The Indigo Girls
Bruce Hornsby and the Range
Vince Neil (of Motley Crue)
Van Halen (Sammy Hagar Days)
Cheap Trick
Def Leapord
James Taylor
Tracy Chapman
The Cranberrys
Pinback
Garth Brooks
Marty Stewart
The Gin Blossoms
Urge Overkill
Pearl Jam
Bonnie Raite
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Huey Lewis and The News
Matchbox 20
Fountains of Wayne
Britney Spears
Kelis (opened for Britney...sung that awful "Milkshake brings all the boys to the yard" song)
Jim Brickman
Willie Nelson
Eric Bibb
Etta James
Buck 65
Gomez
Sammy Hagar
Stone Temple Pilots

New Kids on The Block - Mix Tape Tour with Below 3 in 2022

En Vogue

Rick Astley

Salt 'n Peppa

DAD'S LIST
__________
Don Henley
Linda Ronstadt
Cheap Trick
Rod Stewart
Bob Dylan
Philadelphia Orchestra (w/Ormandy)
Femme Fatale (Cheap Trick warmup)
Hank Snow
Donovan

Ian Stays South! Hoping for Even Better Fortunes This Year

 

While many in South Florida weren't as fortunate, we dodged a bullet with Ian last year.  Hopefully this year, the entire state will dodge these named storms!

Jack's Name! Celebrating the 16 year Anniversary.

 We made the final decision on Jack's name after a visit to Michigan during the Summer of '07.  Rick was continuing to subtly push for Bart but it just didn't seem right.  On July 16, 2007 we decided that Jack was it!

Upon hearing our decision, Grandpa Tangeman, expressed excitement through an email.  "Jack is a really good name. Is it John-based like Jack Kennedy or pure Jack?

With Jack now nearly 16 will still agree.  Jack is a really good name!

Saint Augustine Fourth of July

St. Augustine on the Fourth is Awesome!  These are pics from 2022!

Maple Pancake Snaps - Reviewed!

Trader Joe's Maple Pancake Snaps are pretty darn good.  Sure enough, their flavoring nails the maple syrup pancake flavor.  You only need one or two though!   Overall rating 8/10!

Random Dad Notes

The Tangeman family's "only" real vacation occurred in 1951 and was a trip to Colorado.

Dad's tuition at Georgia Tech in the early '60s was $235 / quarter... meaning a full year of school could be had for right at $700!   Mine in the early '90s was ~$10K/year and I met an intern from GT during the summer of 2012 who said her cost was ~$40K/year!

Here's one of his favorite games he always talked about (and went to) from his days at Georgia Tech.  A 7-6 victory over #1 Alabama, breaking their 26 game unbeaten streak in 1962.

He and Mom bought 302 Univ. in 1970 for $26K putting $6K down and financing the balance.  The ended up paying it off in about 7 years.

Dad's Mom Dorothy was born in 1910 and died in 1964, the result of Myasthenia Gravis. 

The story of the benefits of being able to read upside down
Dad walked into the Math Department office one evening before going home and noticed an application for tenure from one of his colleagues on the secretary's desk.  He was able to read it (upside down) and took note that the applicant had far inferior credentials to himself.  He hadn't intended to apply for tenure that year but figured if this applicant were to get it - there's no way the tenure committee could deny him!   So he submitted his application the next day and sure enough - received tenure (along with the other, more politically connected but less qualified applicant)

The H.P. Maddox Ham Story

Dad was long-time friends with a gentleman named H.P. Maddox.  H.P. lived in Harrisburg, AR and was at one time the mayor of Harrisburg.  Mr. Maddox was older and passed in 1994.  Dad was asked to be a pallbearer.  After the services and reception, Dad was sent home with a lot of the food people had brought to the family including most of a ham.  Our family ate a lot of left-overs, which might contributed to my general disdain of most leftovers to this day, and we ate on this ham for a few days.  The ham continued to be served and eventually we grew weary of ham.   It was at this point that Uncle Bob and Aunt Carolyn came to visit (mid to late June based on H.P.'s June 2 date of death.  Dad greeted Uncle Bob as they were coming in and cautioned him about eating the ham.  Bill specifically remembers the quote as being, "Don't eat the ham, it will kill you!"   As I understand it, the ham was served but not really consumed. 

It should be noted that Dad's father, Lawrence (Larry) passed away on June 3, 1994 (one day after H.P.) so there was a lot going on at this time.  I remember driving home from Atlanta and then driving to Nebraska for grandpa's funeral.  Georgia Tech also made their best run ever in the College World Series happening during this period as well and we were able to attend one of the games below. 

Rinso the Rabbit

We heard the story of Rinso several times through the years.  I think it might have happened when the family was living in Alabama.  The kids (Dave, Paul, Dad) came home and the family had acquired a rabbit.  They named him Rinso, after a popular soap out at the time.

The kids considered Rinso a pet and enjoyed playing with him and watching him grow.  It was all good until one day when they came home from school they couldn't find Rinso.

The dinner menu that night featured Rinso and it didn't go over to well with the kids.  Dad commented that they family didn't have a lot of money and Rinso presented an opportunity for an inexpensive but good dinner.

White Owl

Dad's Grandpa was Abraham.  The called him "white owl" because he liked that brand of cigar.

He was born in 1864 in Holland, Wisconsin and died in 1957. He lived in Firth, NE and is also buried in the cemetery there.

He had a very small farm in Firth and also ran the Firth Mercantile that was later the location of the Firth Creamery (108 W 3RD St, Firth, NE) He was heavy set guy. His wife, Elizabeth DeVries, died in 1944 and Dad vaguely remembers seeing her very sick in bed. There were three children. Ann, Marie and Lawrence (Larry). Marie lived in Houston for quite a bit of time (Uncle Paul would visit some when they lived there) and Ann lived in Hickman, NE. Her married name was Heckman. Dad was named after Dirk Tangeman (the original Dirk) who was born in 1720 in Amsterdam.   Abraham's father was also Dirk and was born in 1826 in the Netherlands.  This Dirk was married to Anna Monteba and they had 6 children:  Della, Jane, Abraham, Sarah, Nellie and Lena.  All born in Wisconsin with the exception of Lena who was born in Missouri.   Abraham and Elizabeth put in at the Firth cemetery shown above.

Dad's parents are buried in the Beatrice cemetery.   They lived in Beatrice from ~'46 to '54 moving into the 1805 Elk St. in 1950.  Grandpa worked at Dempster and made ~$3K / year in 1950.  Dempster is still around today and the company was once owned by Warren Buffett.

The Story of Ardeth Wells
Dad always likes telling this story.  It starts around 1948 when his Mom told him, an 8 year old boy that his Dad was having an affair with a lady named Ardeth Wells.  Dad didn't really know what to make of it.  Then, 40 years later, Theresa (his step-Mom) told him his Dad was having an affair with Ardeth Wells!   Dad wanted to burst out laughing but kept his composure.  He assumed, the claim was likely true coming from two independent sources 40 years apart!

Political Careers
Dad famously ran for the Mayor of Jonesboro sometime around 2010 I think.  He didn't do all that well but it was entertaining from our perspective.  His signs had kind of a Halloween theme to them and is campaign focused on the city bus issue.  Jonesboro, at the time, had established a series of bus routes.   Dad felt, rightly so, that this was silly for a town of Jonesboro's size.   He spent a day riding the buses and largely determined he was the only person riding them.  Leveraging data from his experiment he launched his campaign based on the average bus ridership being less than one!  

Mom reminded us that he had a more successful career as a politician.  At one point, back in the 70's maybe, he ran for a Justice of the Peace role and won!

The Mazda Miata
As part of Dad's infatuation with silver and gold he weaved a car into the picture in 2008 when he began liquidation of his gold with the hopes of having enough to purchase a new Miata.   I helped him sell one of his coins on eBay in January '08 and it netted him ~$1000 towards the car.  Bill and I had to talk him out of buying a Toyota Solara convertible and steer him towards the Mazda.   In September of 2014, in typical trading fashion he agreed to sell the Miata to Stephanie and I with the condition that we send the agreed price ($5K) not to him but to Bill and Erin.

The Cool Birthday Gift
Probably around 1978 our TRS-80 computer was getting a lot of use.  Heck - the local paper even did a write-up on our family as being one of the first in town to have a computer.   Dad subscribed to a magazine - BYTE or something like it that often featured games you could type in and save on a cassette type and then load and play.   One month, the magazine featured a basketball game and I wanted to play it so I started typing it in.  It was a long program for an 8 year-old but I made progress.  It must have been close to my birthday when all of this was happening because for my birthday Dad gave me the cassette type with the completed program that he finished for me.  I was able to load and play the thing.

Dad got into genealogy a little bit and on occasion would drive around to look at points of interest from a Tangeman family perspective.  This usually took him to Beatrice and Firth, NE and Minnesota.  He wrote an autobiography which is pretty cool.   A few relevant notes I captured (and subsequently researched) from a discussion or two with him are as follows:

Dad was named after Dirk.  There are actually three Dirks in our lineage.  One born in 1720 in the Netherlands.  He also died in the Netherlands.  Dirk married  Willemijntje Sturms and they had two children (Jan and Cornelia born in 1764 and 1771 respectively).  As mentioned, Jan was born in Holland on 1764 and married Neeltje Van Strijen and had 5 children. He passed away on 19 May 1835 in Burgh, Westerschouwen, Zeeland, Netherlands.   The 5 children were:  Lena, Willem, Dirk (this is the second Dirk), Willemina and Jan.  Following the second Dirk, he was born in 1782 and died relatively young at 1825 but had a one child with Dina Pieterse Hogenboom in 1826.  Though he never met his son you guessed it... it was the 3rd Dirk!  This is the Dirk who had 5 children including Dad's grandfather and my great grandfather Abraham.  Dirk III is buried in the Holland cemetery in Nebraska.  Dad had the gravestone for Dirk III put in (I think it was Dirk - it was someone).  Originally it was an unmarked grave but in a known section of the cemetery.   Dirk's known section was the first recorded after a church fire destroyed previous records.

Abraham's other siblings included Dena, Sara, Lena and Nellie.  Abraham had three children including my grandfather Lawrence (he went by Larry).  Both Jack and I carry on the Lawrence name with our middle names.  It makes for a good middle name!  Larry's siblings were Marie and Anna.  Larry was born August 14, 1908 in Nebraska and died June  3, 1994 in Beatrice, Nebraska.  I drove from Atlanta to Nebraska to attend his funeral.  I was just wrapping up my Master's degree at the time.  I also remember that Georgia Tech had made it to the College World Series going on in Omaha at the same time.  It was quite a drive that featured a stop in Jonesboro on the way.  I think I had already landed a job and school was wrapping up or else I probably couldn't have made it.


The emptying of the freezer

Visit Mr. Spain....and the tools!

The hundreds of cans of dehydrated food!

The '87 Accord and the '88 Camry

Silver and Gold

Cheap Trick in Atlanta and Don Henley in Virginia Beach

The Physics Test at Georgia Tech

Mullins Mix
When Dad was into motorcycles he was also into keeping them clean.  One of his concoctions for doing that was something he termed "Mullins Mix"  Best as I recall, he had a friend named Mullins who came up with it.  He and Uncle Bob used to reference it a lot.  At one point I thought it was a very precise mixture of gasoline, soap, Tide, etc.. but I later learned the base was gasoline and you just mixed in whatever other cleaning agents you had on hand.  Once this toxic mixture was made you would slather it on the oily, greasy areas of the bike and let it soak.  Then you could repeat and scrub.

Things Dad Said
Heavy means good!
Giving blood is like getting an oil change for your body
You want the money flowing in...not out.


On November 19, 2014 Dad called to say he had been diagnosed with colon cancer. 
On January 30, 2015 Dad passed away around 10:30am

Our eulogy to him at his memorial service covered 3 areas where he made an impact on our lives.

1.  Giving quality time to us.  Initial reference was to the 2015 Super Bowl, a great game between New England and Seattle. (though not as great as the Georgia Tech win over Georgia the prior November)   Three "dad" ads appeared.   Boiling down to the fact that, as a Dad, if you give quality time to your kids you are doing a good thing.   Examples given were the Saturday morning breakfast tradition which we carry on with our kids as well as the regular phone calls Robert made from Georgia Tech to get Math and Physics help.

2.  Encouraging and enabling us to see the world... Chevy Chase vacation style with Summer vacations driving around the country.

3.  Knowing our Family - trips often involved family and he wanted us to know our extended family.  Enables us to maintain good relationships through the years with cousins, Uncles, Aunts, etc...