Golden Nuggets: Lighthearted Lessons from a Mentally Challenged Adopted Little Person

By Tom Evans

Golden Nuggets is a lighthearted look at the human condition, providing valuable life lessons that can be learned from the troubles most of us face in this mad world as well as the experiences that bring us joy.
As a thrice divorced man who loves a good party… who loves nature, music and baseball, Tom Evans shares his life’s journey in a unique, humorous, and, at times, somewhat neurotic way.Most readers will find a connection to their own trials and triumphs as they take this journey with Tom.Also explored is the source of true happiness, does it really exist, and if so, how do we tap into it?There’s plenty to struggle with and embrace in this world, but in the end, compassionate service to others is the true source of happiness.We’re more alike than we often realize.We’re all in this together… just passing through.

About the Author
Tom Evans was raised on Long Island and graduated from Shoreham-Wading River high school in 1980. He enlisted in the Air Force in 1981 and is a Desert Storm veteran. In 1993, he joined the Suffolk County sheriff’s office and attained the rank of sergeant before retiring in 2016. Since writing this book, he has learned to sing and play guitar (sometimes quite badly) and co-hosts a radio show on Long Island News Radio 103.9 called The Captain’s Brief. He has a daughter and a son and three granddaughters, so far! Tom is an animal lover, a big Mets fan, and is pretty good at playing ping pong.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Oct 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891273979

Book preview

Introduction

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By the time I was six years old, I was convinced that I was a mentally retarded, secondhand midget. Sorry to all of you who just ran to your safe spaces, I suppose the politically correct way to express who I thought I was would be to use terms like mentally challenged, adopted little person… but it was 1969 and nobody spoke like that.

My reasons for believing the former to be the case were as follows: on my very first day of the first grade, I got yelled at by the teacher for not listening. I was mortified! So being the nervous kid that I was, I sat there for the rest of the school day with my hand cupped around the back of my ear so as to not miss a word that the teacher said. Imagine doing that? I’m sure I looked like an idiot and at the end of the school day, I heard one kid ask another, Is that kid Tommy retarded? Before responding, the kid glanced in my direction and replied assuringly, Must be. I was convinced!

Due to my affliction, I stayed to myself a lot, but I also spent a lot of time hunting for animals, really anything that moved. I’d collect grasshoppers, lady bugs, and when I came across a turtle or a snake, I’d promptly place it in my bucket. Yes, I carried around a bucket. In fact, I became known in neighborhood circles as the boy with the bucket. I loved being around animals and still do. I never felt judged for my mental impairment around my animal friends… and still don’t.

It wasn’t long after that when I learned that some kids were adopted. So, I put two and two together and came up with five. My mom and dad were nothing like me and they certainly weren’t retarded, I mean, for goodness’ sake, my dad drove a car and went to work every day at the telephone company, he had to have some smarts! Plus, I didn’t see a resemblance at the time between me and my siblings, so I figured I must be adopted, or secondhand as I had heard it said. I figured my parents, adoptive parents, probably felt sorry for me… Think about it, a retarded child in an orphanage… what a sad sight I must have been. So, they gave me a home… They’re such nice people.

It was around this time that I started to develop a love for music. Every Sunday we’d get in Dad’s car and drive to church. I wasn’t crazy about going to church, I was too restless to sit still for that long, but I did enjoy the ride to and from church. My dad would play music on the car radio. To this day, whenever I hear the songs Up, Up and Away by The 5th Dimension or Georgy Girl by The Seekers, my mind takes me right back to that old car and those drives to and from church. And although I had my issues, you know, being, well, slow and wondering why my real parents had abandoned me, music seemed to assuage my whole life situation… and it still does.

Back in those days, we used to visit my cousins on weekends now and then. We’d all climb into the family car and take the two-to-three-hour trek from Eastern Long Island to New Jersey. As usual, Dad would play tunes on the radio which I loved. My cousins were a pisser, three boys and a girl all around the same age as my two sisters, my brother and me. Our weekends would feature carp fishing in the neighborhood pond, bedtime pillow fights, and wiffle ball which I loved. In fact, this is where I started to develop a love for baseball. I wish I could say, however, that it was all fun and games at my cousins’ house, but the last building block, the trifecta to my early-life crisis, was born there.

You see, my cousin Johnny and I were very close in age, although he was much taller than I was. This lack of vertical achievement on my part would always prompt my Uncle Bill to question why I was so small, and he often referred to me as a munchkin! Now I had seen The Wizard of Oz, so I knew what a "munchkin" was, and I also knew that the people playing the Munchkins were known as The Singer Midgets. So, the dye was cast, the seed had been planted, and there I was… a midget… a mentally retarded secondhand midget… What a dreadful fate…

So I’m sixty now, I thought growing old would take longer, but here I am, the same age as old people. I can’t complain, although I’ve had to live with an on and off feeling of unease for most of my life, a condition I think many of us grapple with, I’ve had a good run… lots of friends, family, and a great career. I still love animals, especially dogs, but I’m also a novice bird watcher and I like to go salamander hunting with my granddaughters. I learned to play guitar and I can even sing a few songs. I’m a huge baseball fan, still waiting for my Mets to win their next World Series. I was twenty-three years old when that last happened!

My life, however, like most people my age, has not been without some drama, almost all of it self-inflicted, of course. In fact, if someone did to me what I’ve done to myself… I’d probably kill ‘em! Complicated relationships with women and whiskey… Those two elements conspired in fueling my seemingly everlasting mid-life crisis! I’ve been divorced three times, yes, three times! And I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with Jim Beam. In fact, after reading the warning label on a Beam bottle for the first time… I almost quit reading! But at least I’m not a mentally challenged adopted little person… I gave up on that notion over fifty years ago.

I often wish that when I was young, someone would have warned me more effectively about the perils of life and taught me how to better appreciate life’s wonders. There are so many lessons to learn from suffering, that’s for sure, but there are also valuable lessons hidden within the things we love and enjoy. Perhaps those lessons could have saved me a lot of distress… and a lot of trips to the liquor store. I also wish I had a better understanding of what our purpose is in this life and in this world we find ourselves in. Is there any such thing as true and lasting happiness? And if so, where is it found? So as I embark upon what’s sure to be my late-life crisis somewhere over the horizon, I decided to write this book. My hope is that it will impart golden nuggets of wisdom to the young… and golden nuggets of laughter to the, well, not so young… enjoy.

I hate the term mid-life crisis!… My whole life has been a crisis… early-life, mid-life… and now late-life!… Life in itself is a crisis!"

Tom Evans

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Chapter One

Nuptial Nuggets

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…and they lived happily ever after.

How many times did you hear that growing up? It’s usually said after the groom kisses the bride. I guess it’s better than …and Bob and Mary lived happily, for a while, until Mary got bored, hooked up with her old high school boyfriend on Facebook, had Bob forcibly removed from their home by the cops and now Bob lives above his buddy’s garage and works two jobs in order to pay Mary her maintenance and child support…

Do I paint a familiar picture? I decided that the first chapter of my book would focus on marriage because, well, marriage seems to be a favorite playground for human dysfunction, discontent, and a whole lotta drama. I myself have dwelled in the blissfulness of marriage. I enjoyed it so much I did it three times! I felt the love and I loved the laughter, the only thing that eluded me was the happily ever after! What was with all those fairy tales my mom read to me when I was little, how about all those movies I watched that ended in a beautiful fairy tale wedding!? I guess that’s why they call them fairy tales. Listen, especially all you youngsters out there, marriage is no fairy tale; marriage is hard! It’s even hard to spell…. I keep putting the a before the i!

Check out what my best man asked me before my third wedding:

Do ya think it would be inappropriate for me to lead off my dinner speech with ‘Welcome back everyone’…?

Now I’ve had my doubts about marriage for quite some time, but when The Captain and Tennille got divorced, my faith in the institution plummeted down the charts. The Captain and Tennille for heaven sakes! In the summer of ‘75, you couldn’t put a radio on without hearing Love Will Keep Us Together! The song won the Grammy for Song of the Year and stayed at number one for weeks! Love will keep us together, that’s it I thought, The Captain and Tennille had figured it out. They were married for over thirty-five years! They were one married musical duo that against all odds had kept it together, but after all that success, fame, and longevity, with both of them in their seventies, mind you, they got divorced. You’ve heard of couples staying together for the children… This is a case where the couple should have stayed together for the song!

Seriously, based on the divorce rate in our culture, either parents or the schools should do a better job of teaching our young people about marriage, you know, mitigate some of the damage done by all those wonderful, yet misleading fairy tales! I sat in trigonometry during my junior year in high school and I’m now sixty years old and have yet to use trig to solve an equation! A happy marriage, however… Now that’s an equation that needs some solving!

As you probably already know, some of our culture’s smartest and most talented people have struggled to maintain a happy marriage, so wouldn’t it be a significant benefit if young people could go into marriage with the knowledge and tools needed to actually give them a better than fifty-fifty chance of success!? In fact, If I was to teach Marriage 101… ok, stop laughing and hear me out. If I was to teach Marriage 101, or as I like to call it, Nuptial Nuggets 101, well, here’s just a small sample of what my lesson plan might look like…

Nuptial Nuggets 101

Top of the World

New love is wonderful. There’s nothing more euphoric as when you find out that the person of your fancy, fancies you. You wanna tell all your friends, you wanna shout it from the mountain tops, you want the whole wide world to know! Your friends tease you a little, you tell them to stop, but you really don’t want them to. Some of my favorite lifetime memories come from that magical place. The sky becomes bluer, the sun becomes brighter, and every moment is overflowing with promise. You’re on top of the world.

Such a feeling’s coming over me, there is wonder in most everything I see… Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes and I won’t be surprised if it’s a dream… Everything I want the world to be is now coming true especially for me… And the reason is clear, it’s because you are here, you’re the nearest thing to heaven that I’ve seen… I’m on top of the world…

The Carpenters

She Saw a Side!

In a new romance, both parties are on their very, very best behavior. You notice I used the word very twice! Both new lovers are bringing their absolute A game to the relationship. They accommodate each other, he holds doors for her, she cooks for him, he brings her flowers and she goes on a shopping spree to Victoria’s Secret. Everything is so wonderful… until… after a little time goes by… one lover or both see a side of the other person that wasn’t supposed to be there! He notices that she spends enough money on shoes to burn a wet elephant! She starts catching him looking at other women in restaurants… he doesn’t like that they have to visit her mother every Sunday and she’s sick of having to watch Two and a Half Men re-runs every freaking night! And it goes on from there.

For some couples, it may be months before a side is seen, rarely can a person fake it for longer than that. My friend Roger, he’s generally ill-tempered, impatient and intolerant of others, but when he’s with a new lady, it’s like he just graduated from Charm School for Men! He’s the life of the party, he’s throwing around one-liners, he’s like Henny Youngman! The problem is he can only fake it for two weeks max, so he lives alone and brings in a stray cat now and then.

I remember a Seinfeld episode that revolves around Jerry’s new girlfriend seeing a side. It goes something like this: Jerry’s new girlfriend tells him that she’s unhappy with him because she saw a side of him that she didn’t like. While telling George this, Jerry laments, She says she saw a side, I’m so upset with myself… I wasn’t planning on showing her that side for at least another six months! So there you have it, we can only hide the warts for so long and if you start living together, then the jig is really up. As they say, You wanna know me, come live with me. The complaint box starts to fill up and the contents may read something like this:

You never hold a door for me anymore… You never cook for me anymore and you never wear Victoria’s Secret anymore… You don’t bring me flowers anymore… You don’t bring me flowers… You don’t sing me love songs… You hardly talk to me anymore when I come through the door at the end of the day… I remember when you couldn’t wait to love me… You used to hate to leave me… Now after loving me late at night… when it’s good for you babe and you’re feeling alright… Well, you just roll over and turn out the light…and you don’t bring me flowers anymore…

Neil Diamond

Romantic Love

During my second divorce, or was it my third? I can’t remember, it doesn’t matter. I was talking with a friend about what I was going through, and he asked me, Do you love her? I thought about it for a few seconds and replied, I don’t even know what that means anymore, I don’t know if I ever did.

Of all the married couples I know, I’d say there’s probably a handful of them who seem to be genuinely happy. Most of them, however, simply put their heads down and soldier on. Remember, we have a fifty percent divorce rate in this country approximately, but that doesn’t mean that the other fifty percent are doing cartwheels into the bedroom every night. Most of these happily married couples who I know are from my parents’ generation, they’re children of The Great Depression. The culture they grew up in was starkly different from that of we Baby Boomers and Millennials, for instance.

One of these old fellas I know is Danny. He’s my friend Bernie’s dad. Bernie and I grew up together, so I’ve known his dad since I was a kid. I never saw the man without a smile on his face. Well, except for the time when Bernie and I were smoking pot in his basement, and we accidentally set the cat on fire… but other than that he was always smiling. By the way, the cat was fine… he was a little hot, but he survived.

So, I mentioned to him recently, I said, Danny, ever since I’ve known you, you always seem to have a smile on your face, always a funny quip and a kind word. What’s your secret?

He stood there for a moment, crossed his arms, looked toward the sky, and replied, I guess you could say I never had unrealistic expectations… and I’ve always been happy with what God gave me.

Wow, and this is coming from a working man who lived a modest life. If it could only be that easy for all of us. I then said to him, Danny, you’ve been happily married for, well forever, so help me understand something… you see, I understand the love I have for my children, and I understand the love I have for my parents, my brother and sisters, and my friends too. I even understand the love I have for every dog I’ve ever owned… but romantic love… to me it’s like trying to figure out a Rubik’s Cube with both eyes tied behind my back!

Danny chuckled and said, Happily married? He continued, It wasn’t always roses and sunsets. We argued plenty, there were times we didn’t talk for days, even weeks, but I learned to compromise and to sacrifice and I even learned to make believe I was wrong even when I knew I was right… I guess we both did. There were plenty of times I wanted to leave, but I always decided to stay… I guess you could say that’s what romantic love becomes after the newness is gone and the honeymoon is over… romantic love becomes a commitment, a dedication and in some instances, when things get really hard, which they will, a decision to stay and be satisfied with what God gave you.

The following is an excerpt from comedian and former senator Al Franken’s book Oh, The Things I Know:

I’ve been married for twenty-six years. And I honestly believe I love my wife more right now than I did on our wedding day. But I know for sure that I love her more now than I did ten years ago, when the very thought of her would make my stomach turn… Every marriage goes through a stomach-turning phase. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying to you, lying to themselves, or is married to someone really fabulous… Not that my wife isn’t fabulous… (She’s reading this and I don’t want any more trouble…)

Al Franken

In Brandi Carlile’s book Broken Horses, she writes about how she wants to raise her new daughter Evangeline. I think she captures part of what Danny expressed when she writes: I wanted Evangeline to know that love isn’t a feeling. It’s something we do and a promise we keep.

I think that the folks who lived through the struggles of The Great Depression, World War Two and so forth, developed a strong foundation in their religious faith, much stronger than we have now, and a humble appreciation for the simpler things in life. Having lived through those darkest of times, I think they found it much easier than future generations to be quite happy with their lives, including their marriages. Just sayin’.

A little girl asked her older brother, ‘What is love?’ He replied, ‘Love is when you steal my chocolate from my lunch bag everyday and I still hide it in the same place.’

Unknown

So, for all you crazy young romantics out there, just know that the newness is eventually gonna fade, you’re gonna see a side, several sides probably, and in order to keep a marriage together, it’s gonna take commitment, dedication, and you may not want to hear this, but it’s gonna take WORK! Other than that, it’s easy…

Life with me… I know for sure, it ain’t been easy… but you stayed with me anyway… even though you ain’t gonna lose too much by leaving… I’m so glad you stayed…

Lionel Richie

If You Like Pina Coladas

Escape (The Pina Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes was the last U.S. number one song of the Seventies. It’s a catchy fun song that tells the story of a man who grows bored with his current relationship, takes out a personal ad only to find out upon meeting that the woman he’s been corresponding with is actually his current partner. They find out they have much more in common than they realized. There’s a line in the beginning of the song that reflects one of the common aspects of a marriage when he sings, "me and my old lady had fallen into the same old dull routine". The truth about that line is this: Most marriages at one time or another fall into the same old dull routine… raising kids, working full time, and bill paying does not always make for a romantic atmosphere! So, if a dull routine becomes your barometer for cheating or getting divorced, then don’t get married to begin with!

Ladies, remember in the beginning when you first met your new man, he was always on time… but now not so much… it’s not personal, it’s our nature! Here’s a good analogy to that point: If a beautiful sexy woman promises a man that she will meet him every day at a secret hideaway at 1 PM sharp for a sexual favor… in two weeks’ time, he’ll be late! We can’t help ourselves! It’s in our DNA! This is the best nature has to offer! At a certain point in most marriages, spouses begin to take each other for granted; men are especially guilty of this. Take the following story for example: Years ago, a few of my fellow deputies and I, yes, I was a deputy sheriff, I’m retired now. Anyway, we were at Police Week in Washington D.C., and we were invited to attend a class where the benefits of a well-balanced life were discussed. There were cops from all over the country in the class. One of the exercises the teacher presented us with involved listing our life’s priorities. We were all given pencils and paper and we were instructed to list the ten most important elements of our lives. Common entries were faith, wife and kids, career, you know… the biggies. Then the teacher had us cross off five of the ten as if we’d lost them, leaving us with the five most important elements of our lives. After struggling through that, she then had us cross off three more, leaving us with the two most important elements of our lives. Then she went around the room calling on various participants to tell everyone what they were left with and why. Most people were left with God and family with few exceptions. However, there was one cop from Alabama who was still struggling to finish the assignment.

The teacher noticed this and asked him with a half-smile, Still trying to figure out how to save your wife and kids?

The cop, in a deep southern drawl exclaimed, Hell no, I scratched them off long ago… I’m just fretting over how to save my boat and trailer!

Show me a man with the sexiest woman in the world… and I’ll show you a man who’s tired of, well… being intimate with her. That’s not the way I heard it, but I’m trying to keep things clean here. My grandkids may be reading this one day, so no f-bombs. The point is men get bored and it’s not our fault. We are born this way. Follow me here ladies and remember, I’m trying to give you the tools that will increase your chances of a successful marriage and this is a key piece of information about men. You won’t hear this in any of those fairy tales I mentioned earlier, but I believe that men are hard wired by nature to seek out fertile healthy women, or young women with all the curves in the right place, same thing, with whom they can procreate. In fact, science backs me up on this! Scientists studying the behavior of higher primates found that the primates evaluated potential mates based on two variables… youth and health. Why? Young, healthy mates stand a better chance of passing along their DNA. The primates also tried to have sex with as many partners as possible. And that’s why we can’t help staring at other women in restaurants! You see, nature equipped men with this incredibly strong urge in order to ensure the survival of the human race