While some people appear better suited for Mars or Venus, Nathan Evans seems perfectly at home on Earth and in the USA, owing perhaps to his singular genetics; for Nathan, and his sister Lindsey, had a paternal grandfather on the USS Tennessee, bombed in Pearl Harbor in December, 1941; and a maternal grandfather who served as a paratrooper in the 29th Army Infantry division that stormed Omaha Beach in June, 1944; so I suspect if you could check Nathan’s DNA, you would find a marker for courage on one of his chromosomes.
So, I guess I am saying it takes courage to be a good earthling, and of course, patience, creativity, and a willingness to get up every day and do what life asks. Those qualities sum up Nathan, who unlike many of us; is not too full of himself to let others get the limelight while he works in the background. Determined artists, like Nathan, who operate in the physical realm baffle me with their eye for detail, painstaking movements, and drive for perfection. But the greatest message they send is that the most we can hope for is to leave the best of ourselves in the works we produce.
Yes, Nathan had two brave grandfathers, but despite not being challenged to serve in a similar way, he passes the courage test given us all, to be steady during the storms of life. I have seen Nathan work way into the night on art projects after a long day of attending classes and mowing the University grounds, and it did not seem to matter if his day had gone well or not; if something needed done, he went about doing it. I wish I had more of whatever it is he has when it comes to pleasantly setting aside the trivial for the necessary.
On November 19, 2004, my wife Tanga had a severe car wreck in Brownsville, Tennessee, when I was on a work-related trip to Louisiana. Nathan was living with us at the time, while he went to a nearby University. The wreck occurred early in the morning, so by 9 am or so, Tanga was in the Brownsville hospital for observation. Nathan dropped what he was doing, drove the 60 miles round trip to bring her home, and then went to the pharmacy for her medicine. He impressed Tanga with his calm and resolved manner of caring for her. It’s at such times, people unwittingly yield up evidence of their true nature.
Tanga says Nathan’s brand of humor reminds her of comedian and actor Kevin James, which I believe is because they are both so likeable and refreshingly at odds with the normal view of the world. Nathan finds humor in surprising places, usually by turning something completely around, and using his keen sense of irony. For example, one night when Nathan’s favorite sports team, the Louisville Cardinals, were down by a large margin in basketball, he said: “We got ‘em right where we want ‘em.” For him, a strong reaction to a tight game, would be to get up from his green recliner, his chair while he was at our house; and go over to the indoor basketball goal and start firing shots.
If the game did not go the way he had hoped, he would not mope, fume or worse, the way I sometimes would; but he would simply go about his business or even on some occasions, head over to the University to work on an art project. Nathan, being the master of understatement; would say something like “Not so much”, if you asked him whether his team played well in a game they had lost. It’s not surprising then that after he had lived with us a while, he would leave the upstairs area all to me as I watched my favorite team play, knowing I might say rough things or hit the arm of the chair with a little too much force. I might have learned a lot from Nathan’s approach to being a sports fan, but I am not sure even he can help me when it comes to that.
Nathan has a unique take on the world. Most people will have an opinion either predictably right or left in politics, or they will evaluate things either as right or wrong or fair or unfair or momentous or insignificant, but Nathan invariably sees things somewhere between the extremes and in a way you would never have anticipated. The only thing predictable about his take on the world is its unpredictability.
If you like showy, Nathan is not your guy. If you want someone to flatter your wardrobe or your taste in automobiles, keep looking. If you prefer those out to win friends and influence people, Nathan will likely disappoint. If, on the other hand, your taste in people runs to the quietly humorous, sweetly sarcastic, and mildly enigmatic; you might want to give Nathan a test drive. Nathan has all the best qualities of the artistic temperament without the moodiness or explosive temper.
During his time of living at our house we had the enormous pleasure of playing host to he and his future wife Kathryn Johnson; cooking out on the weekends, eating the occasional weekday meal together, and, as I said, watching sports if it involved the University of Kentucky (our favorite team) or the University of Louisville (his and ultimately, their, favorite).
Many nights, sitting upstairs, we heard his key unlock the front door and knew what was coming, since it was his custom to walk heavily up the steps as if to give us ample warning someone else was in the house and then silently turn the corner with a sheepish grin on his face. Tanga would usually say something like: “There’s food on the stove if you are still hungry.”
Before he came to live with us, in 2003; I gave Nathan a small, faded, black and white photo of Tanga’s father sitting on a child’s rocking chair, in front of the TV in their old home place around Christmas 1965 (before he was to die in April, 1966); and asked Nathan to turn it into a painting for me to give to Tanga for our anniversary. The painting hangs in our living room as a reminder of Tanga’s father, our favorite artist and the fragility of life.
Nathan and Kathryn Evans married in North Augusta, SC in October, 2006 and the party afterwards was held in a textile mill turned reception hall in Augusta, GA, along the canal. They had a DJ and a number of us, not prone to public dancing, cut loose that night; in my case, due in part to a feeling of euphoria to see two such dear people, so clearly right for one another, make a public decision to become a couple.
For these reasons and so many more, Tanga and I would have adopted Nathan if his own family had not supported him so well (darn it).
Happy Birthday Nathan. Our house is your house, when you and Kathryn are ever in the area.
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