A letter to my fifteen year old self

Originally published: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 in the Boone County Journal

Dear Travis,

Happy 15th birthday, my young friend. So you’re in the ninth grade now, is that right? Of course you know that this will be your last year of junior high, but in many ways it will also be the last year of your childhood. You won’t believe the changes in store for you over the next few years. I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice right now, which I fully expect you to ignore even though you’re a great kid. As intelligent as you are, when it comes to heeding the words of wisdom from your elders, you’re an idiot.

First of all, you really need to lighten up on your dad’s girlfriend. It’s perfectly natural for a child of divorced parents to harbor a little resentment for a parent’s new love interest, but you have been acting like a real ass lately. Seriously, refusing to have a civil conversation or to make eye contact for well over a year with the woman your father loves? Who does that? What you need to realize is that despite your best efforts to sabotage their relationship, your dad and Susan will be getting married in a couple years. As a result of this lifetime commitment, you will have a new baby sister and brother, who in turn will grow up to become wonderful people who you will be proud to call your siblings.

Next year, after you begin high school, you will fall in love with a girl. You will lose your virginity to this girl. You will become 100% convinced that the two of you will be together for the rest of your lives. Then she will break your heart. You will live, although you’ll doubt it. Sure, you’ll harbor a lot of resentment and say things about her that you’ll later regret, but one day you’ll realize that that young lady taught you a great deal about love and relationships and you’ll be able to apply those lessons to future relationships. Years later, you’ll even come to call her your friend again.

During your junior year, you’ll give in to peer pressure and drown your heartbreak in alcohol. I know you don’t believe me now, but it’s true. This decision will alter your future in ways you cannot imagine. You will turn your back on many of your childhood friends who were smart enough to “just say no.” You will lie to your parents with alarming frequency. Your younger brother will eventually lose nearly all respect for you but will still try to help you by pointing out how you are wasting your potential. You will get drunk and verbally abuse him for saying so. It will take years for your family relationships to fully recover. Gradually your drinking habits will have a greater influence on you than your study habits and you will nearly flunk out of college. You will take awful risks while under the influence. You will drink and drive. You will use drugs. You will cheat death many, many times. You will become the virtual opposite of the innocent, positive person you are today. You will grow to despise the man looking back at you in the mirror. You will be miserable.

As difficult as things get, don’t give up on yourself. There will come a time when you realize how foolish you’ve been behaving and how lucky you are to be alive. You will fall in love with a woman who your friends will say is too good for you. She will help you heal yourself and show you how wonderful life can be. You will become a father, and you will rely on your life-experiences and remaining brain cells to impart valuable lessons to your son. You will stand on the Great Wall of China not once but twice and bring back two beautiful children as “souvenirs.” You’ll rediscover your gift for writing and touch people’s lives through your words. At the age of forty-one, you’ll realize that you have everything you want and need in life and that you are truly happy. And when you look in the mirror, for perhaps the first time since you were fifteen, you will like the person you see.

Take care of yourself/myself, my young friend. Enjoy being fifteen.

Travis

Dream House Hustle

Last night I dreamt that my wife unilaterally made the decision to adopt another child, bringing our total number of children to four. It wasn’t the fact that she acted without consulting me that bothered me, nor was I put off by the idea of having another child. Instead, in the dream, I was angry at Bethany for her ulterior motive for the adoption. Knowing six of us would not fit comfortably in our current, four bedroom house, Dream-Bethany was making a power-play which would force me to agree to buy a bigger house to accommodate our growing family. Even while sleeping, that woman is an evil genius.

I needn’t bother delving into a Freudian analysis of my dream to discover its meaning. For some time now, Bethany has been grumbling about outgrowing our current accommodations. When we bought our house in 1999, we were a family of two. Half of our rooms sat empty and unused for the first year we lived here. But now there are five of us sharing this space, and despite owning ten-acres of Heaven on Earth, our spacious spread doesn’t feel so spacious anymore. Realizing, but not fully admitting, that my evil genius wife was right, I relented and told her that I would consent to buying a bigger house under two conditions: The new house must be in the SoBoCo school district, and Bethany has to be willing to listen to me whine about not wanting to hassle with packing and moving everything we own, not wanting to fill out change of address forms, not wanting to call the satellite people about setting up service in the new house, not wanting to clean our current house from top to bottom in order to make it presentable for selling, not wanting to go into debt again to get a new mortgage, not wanting to rent a car trailer for the rusting hulk of an Impala that’s been parked in our pole barn for the past three years, not wanting to trap our two semi-wild barn cats and moving them, not wanting to say goodbye to the party porch I built with my own two hands, and not wanting to deal with all the unpacking and settling in to a new house. She said, “Deal!” without hesitation. I should have held out for an increase in my beer money allowance. Evil. Genius.

So the house hunt has begun, and I am already starting to whine. I know people pack up and move all the time, but I haven’t had to move in almost fourteen years, and as anyone who knows me at all will tell you, I hate moving. From the day I was born through the day we bought this house, I moved over two-dozen times. When Bethany and I bought this place, our real estate agent predicted that we would move within five years. I told her she was dead wrong and that I never planned on moving again as long as I lived. She laughed and said, “Wait till you start having kids. You’ll see.” Well, as anyone who knows me will also tell you, I can be quite stubborn. I swore a blood oath right then and there to never move, no matter how crowded our house got, just to prove our realtor wrong. “I’ll show her,” I said. Well, I nearly tripled the number of years she thought we would live here, so I guess Madame Smarty Pants Suit’s crystal ball must have been on the blink that day. “You really showed her, babe,” my wife says, in an “if-I-feed-his-ego-he’ll-give-me-what-I-want” sort of way. Well played, evil genius. Well played.

Where y'all from?

(Originally published in Boone County Journal: Wednesday, September 5)

My children aren’t altogether sure how to answer when people ask them where they’re from. They usually cite Ashland as their hometown because they ride through there on the way to and from our house, they go to school there, and they eat pizza there. (Home is where the pizza is.)

Technically, we have a Hartsburg address, but our house is actually situated somewhere in-between Ashland, Wilton, and Hartsburg. I reckon quite a few other SoBoCo residents have the same quandary as my kids when it comes to identifying their hometown. Or maybe not. What’s the protocol in this situation? If they identify with Ashland, then shouldn’t they call Ashland home despite their address? Would that be an affront to Hartsburg? Shouldn’t we consider Wilton’s feelings, too?

I don’t have the answers to these questions because I’m not originally from this area. But does that fact make Ashland/Hartsburg/Wilton any less my Home? Am I not a full-fledged, card carrying member of the SoBoCo community just because I’m not indigenous? No, I wasn’t born or raised in Southern Boone County. Instead, I moved to this area—on purpose. My wife and I chose to live here, raise a family here, and grow old here. Ever since I saw the movie Doc Hollywood, starring Michael J. Fox, I wanted to move to a small town full of friendly folks and quirky characters who would accept me, an egocentric outsider, as one of their own. Ashland is that town. Since 1999, we have called the greater Ashland metropolitan area Home. And we’ve never regretted it for a second.

When Bethany and I first moved here we felt slightly removed from the community, and rightly so. We didn’t know a soul. But no one “from here” ever made us feel like we weren’t really “Ashland people.” No one treated us like outsiders. People were always friendly and quick to return a wave. I think our new area neighbors were just giving us our space, which we appreciated. As our kids entered school, we became much more in touch with the fine folks of Southern Boone County. We made lots of friends and realized just how kind, generous, and accepting the people around here truly are.

 

Something has been troubling me lately, however. In the aftermath of the recent school board scandal, I overheard some grumblings that suggested the problems were because of people living around here who weren’t really “Ashland people.” While I won’t weigh in on the facts/rumors flying around in the post-Deffenbaugh Letter era, I think equating non-natives with problems in our community is a dangerous precedent to set.

SoBoCo is a microcosm of America. It is a melting pot. With the possible exception of any Ashland-area Native Americans who may still be living here, the overwhelming majority of area families migrated here from somewhere else. People with a dream of making a better life for their children and for themselves continue to be welcomed to our community year after year. Folks from all walks of life are making our small town a diverse and enlightened one. While uninhibited growth can present problems, Ashland is one of the few towns in Missouri (and possibly the nation) that continues to build new homes, businesses, schools, libraries, and infrastructure despite the national economic downturn, while still maintaining its down-home, farming-community feel.

The reason for Ashland’s success: the people. Farmers and entrepreneurs. Young and old. Black, White, Asian, and Hispanic. Life-long residents and recent transplants. We are all “Ashland people” and I am proud to call Ashland/Hartsburg/Wilton my hometown(s).

Truman's First Bus Ride

(Originally published in the 8-22-12 edition of the Boone County Journal)

Dear Bus Bullies,

Thank you for apologizing to my son Truman for the way you treated him on the school bus last week. Although your apology only came after school officials confronted you about your behavior, I will assume that you are genuinely remorseful following your insensitive actions. I would like to think that because you are so young yourselves, you did not know how hurtful your comments were to my young child. I am grateful to the staff at your school for addressing this situation immediately, and I am hopeful that you will never treat another person in this manner again.

I feel that it is very important to let you know a little more about the person you were being so mean to that day. Truman is five years old, and the day you teased him was only his second day of kindergarten. Having picked him up at school the previous day, Thursday afternoon was his first-ever ride on a school bus. He had been looking forward to that ride for a long time—ever since he first saw his big brother Alex step off that big yellow bus nearly four years ago. Imagine how upset I was when I greeted Truman at the bus stop and asked him how he liked his first bus ride and he said, “Some kids made fun of my hand.”

I am not naïve. I know that kids sometimes tease people who are different. I expected this situation to present itself at some point. I just didn’t expect it on Truman’s first-ever bus ride. It breaks my heart to know that what should have been a wonderful and fun memory will be forever tainted by your unfortunate choice to make my son feel bad about himself. From what I understand, you loudly proclaimed that Truman’s left hand was gross. You yelled, “Ew!” when you saw that he only has three fingers instead of five. I could excuse your reaction if you had immediately stopped drawing attention to Truman’s deformity and apologized, but witnesses claim that you continued to make a big deal about it even after several of your peers told you to cut it out. In other words, you knew what you were doing was wrong and that it could hurt Truman’s feelings, but you continued anyway. Shame on you.

You should know a few things about the little boy you bullied that day. Truman was born in China almost six years ago. A day or so later, he was found on a sidewalk in a big city after being abandoned by his biological parents. No one knows for sure why he was abandoned, but our best guess is because of his deformed left hand and foot. In some cultures, birth defects are considered a curse against a family and the innocent baby is often abandoned—or worse. Truman was lucky, because someone found him on the sidewalk and brought him to an orphanage before it was too late. My wife and I were lucky, too, because we were able to adopt him when he was two years old and bring him home to live with us here in Ashland.

Have you ever seen the movie “Finding Nemo”? It is about a young fish who was lucky enough to survive an attack by a barracuda that left him with a deformed fin which he and his dad called his “lucky fin.” Well, we call Truman’s left hand his “lucky hand” because it was likely what started the chain of events that brought us together. He is proud of his lucky hand and has never felt self-conscious about it for a single moment. It is just a part of who he is, and he is a wonderful human being. Truman is a lively, happy, funny, and positive kid. His spirit shines so brightly that he makes everyone around him feel glad just to know him. And yet, you tried to make him feel bad about his hand. You tried to make him feel bad about who he is. How would you feel if someone tried to make you feel that way?

I tend to believe the best about people, so I choose to believe that you are good kids who just made a bad choice. Learn from your mistakes and grow as people. And get to know my Truman. You’ll be glad you did.

Love & Fried Chicken

(Originally published in the 8-8-12 edition of the Boone County Journal)

In defending his company’s stance against same-sex marriage, Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy recently stated his business is “based on biblical principles, asking God and pleading with God to give us wisdom on decisions we make about people and the programs and partnerships we have.” One of the partnerships Mr. Cathy’s company maintains is with an organization called the Family Research Council, an outfit classified as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Law Poverty Center. According to its own records, the FRC recently lobbied members of the United States Congress against supporting a resolution that denounced Uganda’s notorious “Kill the Gays” bill that calls for anyone convicted of committing a homosexual act to be put to death. Leviticus 20:13 does state, “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

So, it would appear that Chick-Fil-A supports the biblical principle that homosexuals must be executed, right? No, you say? That’s not what Mr. Cathy said, you insist. Surely you do not mean to imply that Mr. Cathy or other devout Christians can pick and choose which verses of the bible to accept or reject. The Lord clearly said in Leviticus 20:22, “Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them.” So, if the bible calls for homosexuals and adulterers to be put to death, then it must be done. The scripture also calls for anyone who curses their mother or father to be put to death, too. (How would any of us survive our teenaged years if this law was followed to the letter?) Or what about in Deuteronomy 22:28-29 when God commands that when a virgin is raped, her attacker must pay her father a fine and then they must marry and never get divorced?

If we are to cite the bible as a reason to keep same-sex couples from being married, then we must follow every word of the scripture. If we reject even one passage because we feel it is antiquated or unjust, then the authority of the rest of the book is called into question. Not comfortable with making rape victims marry their attackers? Not convinced that cursing your father warrants being executed? Me neither. Plenty of bible passages mention examples of marriage that would be considered “non-traditional” in today’s world. King David had eight wives and ten concubines, for example. That doesn’t fit very well with many Christians’ biblical definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman. Since the bible can contradict itself, and because most of us in the modern age don’t accept all the severe punishments it calls for, we must therefore reject the bible as a basis for defining marriage.

How then, can we define marriage? I define it as a lawful union between two people who love one another and who have pledged the rest of their lives to each other. As an ordained minister, I have had the privilege of performing wedding ceremonies for several couples recently. Unfortunately, in Missouri and most states, same-sex marriage is illegal and I am not able to solemnize the marriages of my gay friends. I compare this injustice to pre-civil rights laws that prevented mixed-race marriages. I wonder if those who came out to support Chick-Fil-A last week would have done so if the company openly advocated against the rights of blacks to marry whites. I submit to you that being gay or straight is as much of a choice as being black or white. I have several gay and lesbian friends and I know for a fact that they did not choose to be homosexual. I have seen with my own eyes how dedicated these couples are to one another. It breaks my heart that in this relatively enlightened age, some people dedicate themselves to ensuring that my gay friends can never be married to the people they love.

A friend said I was being intolerant by boycotting a business for exercising their free speech rights. I am boycotting Chick-Fil-A for their financial support of organizations that advocate outlawing homosexuality and same-sex marriage. To me, their effort to marginalize a segment of the population is the definition of intolerance. For that reason, in the battle between love and fried chicken, I choose love. 

Happy Gotcha Day

Exactly one year ago, a little Chinese girl was led into a room full of strange, pale faces all staring directly at her. She had never seen westerners before, much less spoken with any. For that matter, she had not met or spoken with many Chinese either. Virtually everyone on Earth was a stranger to little Tian Tian because in all her seven years of life she could only remember leaving her orphanage twice.

 Considering all this, she would have been forgiven for acting frightened or apprehensive that day. No one would have blamed her for being upset or reticent. In fact, it was expected. It was a day unlike any day she had ever experienced. Every day for seven years, Tian Tian woke up, ate her meager rations, sat around with almost nothing to do, bathed, and went to bed. Because she was born different (cerebral palsy) from the other children, she was not allowed to attend class and receive even a rudimentary education, despite the fact that she had no mental disabilities whatsoever. As she grew older and demanded less attention from her caretakers, Tian Tian was left to look after herself for most of the day. Inmates in American prisons are offered more educational and enrichment services than the innocent little Chinese girl received.

 In seven years, no one bothered to teach Tian Tian to hold her head up. No one showed her how to use chopsticks to feed herself. No one taught her how to blow her nose or brush her teeth. No one taught her how to use crayons or to write. No one taught her how to read. Despite living in a city that hosted the world’s biggest ice sculpture festival because the region is blanketed in a deep winter freeze for half the year, Tian Tian had never seen snow because no one had ever bothered to hold her up to the window of her room so she could see out and enjoy the natural beauty of the world.

 Tian Tian had every right to feel overwhelmed when she walked into the room that day to be introduced for the first time to her new family. But she wasn’t. When the silly looking white man approached her and said in garbled Mandarin “Wo shi baba. Wo ai ni,” (I am your daddy. I love you.), she smiled and whispered, “Wo ai ni, Baba.” (I love you, Daddy.) And then she gave me a hug. She repeated this process with her new mama, brothers, and grandmother, too. And then she held my hand and just smiled. We posed for a few pictures and signed a few forms and then my new daughter let me hold her in my arms for the very first time. Only it didn’t feel like the first time at all. It felt so natural and so right that it seemed that I’d been holding her for years. And perhaps I was, if only in my heart—and in hers, too.

 In one year, Tiana has made a remarkable transformation. Her short, brittle hair is now long and lustrous. Her legs that were so atrophied from inactivity that she could barely walk twelve months ago are now so strong that her favorite activities include dancing, playing basketball, and chasing her brothers on the playground at Ashland City Park. She has learned how to read and write. She exhibits wonderful table manners (when she feels like it) that include holding her head up, using a fork (or chopsticks), and chewing with her mouth closed. And she has seen and played in snow, something she still swears to this day does not exist in China. For one full year, I have been amazed and humbled (and frustrated) by this little girl on a daily basis. She is absolutely everything I could hope for in a daughter—and then some. Those who have had the privilege of getting to know Tiana over the past 365 days will agree that there is something very special about this child. To know her is to love her. To be loved by her is the greatest gift anyone can be given.

 Happy Gotcha Day, Tiana. Wo ai ni.

Wedding #3

As I was driving to Columbia's Stoney Creek Inn last Friday to meet up with my brother Blake and his family (who were in town to do some house-hunting) and also our father and our grandmother, I received a phone call from my wife Bethany. She said, "Question for you: You wouldn't be interested in doing a wedding tomorrow would you?"

I was a bit taken aback at first, but I recovered enough to ask for more information, which she then gave me. Her friend at work--a woman named Sharon--has a husband named John who is a pastor of a local church, and he was supposed to officiate a wedding Saturday afternoon, only he dislocated his hip this morning and is in the hospital and is heavily sedated on account of the pain. He had heard that I was an ordained minister myself (I had just conducted two wedding ceremonies the previous week) and so he asked his wife if she would see if I would be willing to fill in for him. Weighing the moral imperative to do what was right against my aversion to solemnizing a wedding of two complete strangers on just 24 hours notice, I agreed to help out. I was given the bride and groom's contact info and the script for the ceremony Friday afternoon and a heap of thank yous from a well-medicated Pastor John.

Immediately, I called the groom, a fellow named Mark to tell him that I would be on hand to make his big day go ahead as planned. I asked him how he was doing and he said, "I'm okay, but my fiance is sort of freaking out." Understandably so, I told him, but I assured him that they had nothing to worry about. This would be my third outdoor wedding in the past two weeks, and I was confident that things would be just fine. You could hear the weight slide off his shoulders right then and there.


The rehearsal was at four that afternoon, just a few hours after I first agreed to help the young couple out. By five o' clock, a well-planned ceremony had been rehearsed and the bride was feeling significantly better. I've never heard more "thank yous" in all my life. The next day, we met at the winery in Rocheport at 12:30. I went around and made sure everyone in the wedding party knew their role and at precisely 1:00pm, we began the ceremony. Although it was 102 degrees, no one passed out and everything went exactly as planned. The wedding was a huge success and afterward, I was treated like the second coming of the messiah. I told the parents of the happy couple, and the newlyweds themselves, that it was an honor to be able to help them out on their special day. Soon, about 130 people who I'd considered total strangers just one day earlier shook my hand one by one and thanked me for being there for Crystal and Mark. In a strange twist of fate, the wedding reception took place at the same Stoney Creek Inn that my brother was staying at--the same place, incidentally, where all of the out of town wedding guests were staying, too. It seemed like I knew every single person in that place, and I really almost did.

Pastor John tried to give me the money the Hoffman's gave him for his services but I flatly refused. I told him to use that money however he saw fit and to concentrate on his recovery. His hip had been severely displaced and required a medical procedure under general anesthesia to pop it back in. I can't imagine the pain he must have been in. Yet to his credit, the first thought that went through his head when he injured himself was, "I don't want to let that nice young couple down." Well, he didn't let anybody down. And he gave me an opportunity to step outside my comfort zone and do something good for some folks in need. That's quite a gift. You can't put a price on that.

Thanks Pastor John, and congratulations Crystal and Mark!

First term stay-at-home dad

First term stay-at-home dad



Published: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 9:43 AM CDT

Have you ever seen the “before and after” photographs that show how dramatically four years on the job ages the President of the United States? Our president never really gets a day off. His vacations are working vacations. He can’t go anywhere to clear his head without an entourage in tow. From the moment he wakes up till the minute his head hits the pillow at night, people are constantly asking him questions, demanding his attention, and depending on him to solve their problems. Can you imagine what it must be like to live with that amount of stress 24/7? I’ll bet you can if you’re a stay-at-home parent. Later this month I will celebrate my fourth anniversary of becoming a full-time, stay-at-home dad. Now seems like an appropriate time to evaluate my first four years on the job, and to contemplate running for a second term.

When I quit my job in 2008, I announced to my friends and family that I was “retiring” from the rat race. Years of working in sales, both retail and wholesale, and in management had taken their toll on my soul. I needed to make a drastic change to rekindle my spirit. Adopting two-year-old Truman and staying home to raise him did just that. I quickly forgot all about the stress of the retail world. Then I realized what real stress is. Real stress is trying to teach a two-year old from China to understand and speak English. Real stress is trying to change a radioactive diaper in the restroom of the Olive Garden without contaminating your nice dinner clothes. Real stress is working on potty training, cooking three meals a day, trying to keep up with the laundry, vacuuming, dishes, mowing, and such while trying to save enough energy to maintain a healthy relationship with a spouse who is sympathetic to your situation, but has a separate set of work-related issues to deal with.

I should have known what to expect. I actually played Mr. Mom to Alex when he was a little guy. But I more or less just “played.” I did not fully immerse myself in the stay-at-home lifestyle back then and did a pretty woeful job of taking care of the house and my wife. Bethany not only brought home the bacon, but she also fried it up in a pan, washed the pan, mopped the kitchen floor, etc. I focused on Alex and neglected the rest of my duties as a husband/homemaker. My forgiving wife graciously allowed me to give it another go when we decided to adopt, and I think for the most part I redeemed myself. In fact, I did such a good job, Bethany and I decided to again add to our brood—and to my workload.

For some reason, I was under the misguided impression that adding a third child to the mix would only increase my workload and stress level by one-third. I was never any good at math. Someone should have stepped in and warned me that adding a third child actually means having 50% more children and 100% more work than when you only have two. Now I have one kid who is learning about a new culture, two who are learning English, and three who are producing more dirty dishes, laundry, and clogged toilets than an army platoon. Stress? You betcha.

Still, I can’t complain. Homemakers in previous generations didn’t have the luxuries of indoor plumbing, washer & dryer combos, and automatic dishwashers like I do. They didn’t have the internet and satellite television to entertain them during their precious few minutes of down-time. Is being a stay-at-home parent the most difficult job I’ve ever had? Yep. Has my hair started turning gray and have bags appeared under my eyes? Yep and yep. Will I be seeking a second four-year term as a full-time dad? With a 100% approval rating from my family, I think I have to. It sure beats “working” for a living.

Elephants never forget










Published: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 9:49 AM CDT

When my mother was a young girl, her father gave her a small elephant figurine that he had brought back with him following his deployment during World War II. A self-professed “Daddy’s girl,” my mother loved the gift almost as much as she loved her hero-father. Little did he know that one souvenir pachyderm would eventually become a herd of over two hundred elephant keepsakes amassed by my mom over the next sixty years. Tragically, he would not live to see his little girl or her collection grow because a few short years after giving his beloved daughter the gift, my grandfather took his own life.



I don’t think my mother ever fully recovered from the shock of suddenly and inexplicably losing her dad. Nevertheless, she always spoke fondly of him rather than with bitterness in her voice. As the years passed, Mom would pick up miniature elephants at garage sales and flea markets and display them throughout the house as a reminder of her father. They say elephants never forget. By collecting elephant figurines, Mom made sure she never forgot her daddy.



Being lazy shoppers, my brother and I gave our mom elephants for her birthday every single year. We also gave them to her for Mother’s Day and Christmas, too. It was automatic. But she seemed to love them all, mostly because she loved her boys. Little did I realize that her beloved herd would one day become mine.



When Mom was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer a few years ago, the disease had already spread to her brain before anyone knew there was a problem. She fought valiantly, undergoing brain surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. As much as she suffered, she could have been forgiven for throwing in the towel. She could have refused to receive further treatments. She could have followed in her father’s footsteps and taken the easy way out. Instead, she maintained a brave face and her dignity throughout, never forgetting the impact it had on her when her own parent gave up.



Mom stubbornly held on long enough for Bethany and me to bring Truman home from China. A week later, I convinced her to move in with us so we could look after her and so she could get to know her new grandson. Three weeks later, she died in our home, surrounded by everyone she loved. When Blake and I later sorted through her possessions, the only items I cared about keeping were photographs and of course, her elephants.



Today, all but a couple dozen of her pint-sized pachyderms are packed away in my storage room. Nevertheless, you will still see elephants in virtually every room of our house. Some of my favorites are the Asian elephants Mom had. These hold a special significance to me for a couple reasons. For one, her collection started with an Asian elephant. Also, a few Asian elephants still live in the jungles of southern China, near the area where Truman is from. Plus, we have some pieces of Chinese art displayed in our house and the Asian elephants compliment them quite well.



Last week, for the first time in my life, I bought an elephant piece for myself. I had no intentions of ever adding to an already excessive collection, but in this case, the decision was practically made for me. My friend Monica Mauney painted a stunning work of abstract art that I knew I had to have as soon as I saw it. Though I did not commission the painting, Fate must have. Set against a gorgeous red sky at sunset is the silhouette of an elephant with its trunk raised to the heavens. High in the red sky there are three brightly shining stars. (The Chinese flag also features stars on a red background.) To me, the three stars represent my three kids, two of which are Chinese, and the elephant represents my mom, who seems to be calling out to her three grandkids, no doubt telling them how much she loves them.



We love you, too, Nonna. And we, like your elephants, will never forget.

April 18th Column

Categorically Lazy

Published: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 9:42 AM CDT

Last week, I received a “kick in the pants” email from my book editor (my cousin Larry) that warned that due to my slacking-off on the book-writing front, I was running the danger of becoming known only as a writer of a weekly small town newspaper column rather than as the world-famous author of several best-sellers that I planned on writing someday. I have to hand it to Larry; appealing to my delusions of grandeur while preying on my insecurities is a very effective way to get my attention.

The tough-love from my cousin is both deserved and appreciated. Not only have I failed to start writing the follow-up to my runaway hit “Naked Snow Angels”, (a book that sold literally tens of copies worldwide), but I have also neglected to update my blog and my website (www.travisnaughton.com) for months. I could excuse my lack of output by claiming that I am too busy being a stay-at-home dad/husband/housekeeper/cook/dishwasher/taxi driver/groundskeeper/grocery-getter/clothes-washer/sorter/folder to write more, but the truth is that I am just plain lazy.

I could do more with the three hours of free time I have each morning while Truman is at preschool, but if you could kick your kids out the door at 7:45 a.m. and have the house to yourself for a precious few hours afterwards, wouldn’t you crawl under the covers and go back to sleep, too?

I don’t do mornings because I am a night owl, and by 10:00 p.m. I’m usually the last one up at the Naughton house. I suppose I should use that time to write, but more often than not, the lethal combination of a comfy recliner and a high definition television set kill my desire to work. This is especially true after a long day of doing chores and/or watching sports.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote, “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” In other words, only do those things which you would want everyone to do under the same circumstances. Kant called this moral law his Categorical Imperative. If I live by the Categorical Imperative and I choose to be lazy and neglect to live up to my creative potential, then I am implicitly willing that everyone be lazy and neglect their creative potential. This of course would be unsustainable because eventually there would be no new programming on my HDTV worth watching.

Therefore, in order to please Kant and my dozens of faithful readers, (and guarantee the future productivity and continuation of the human race), I need to begin my next writing project ASAP. Larry was absolutely right saying that by not writing more I am running the risk of only being known for writing a column in a small town newspaper. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing necessarily. I thoroughly enjoy writing this column for the Journal, and judging by the feedback I’ve received, there are a few folks in Southern Boone County who enjoy reading it each week. One afternoon not long ago, a woman introduced herself to me and said that one of my columns actually changed her life. She said that she had reached a point in her life where she needed a push in a new direction, an impetus to make a better life for herself. At that same moment in time, New Year’s Day, I had written an article about hitting life’s reset button on January 1st thereby giving us all an opportunity to reinvent ourselves and live up to our full potential. The woman said that when she read my column, she instantly realized what she needed to do in order to improve her life. She said she cut out my column and posted it to her bulletin board so she could see it every day and remain motivated. Soon thereafter, she enrolled in college and began to change her life for the better. Then she said to me, “I just wanted to say ‘thank you’ and tell you how much your column meant to me.”

I was humbled by the woman’s kind words and moved to tears listening to her story. I realized right then and there that being known only as a writer of a weekly small town newspaper was good enough for me.

Making Memories

Memory Maker

By Travis Naughton

Published: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 9:37 AM CST

One day when I was a teenager growing up in Hannibal, Missouri, I suddenly became aware that my days of worry-free childhood were numbered. Most of my friends had part-time jobs by then, which I thought was pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. I remember telling my dad, who had been strongly encouraging me to get a job, that I wasn’t ready to be a grown up just yet. Shortly thereafter, I was flipping burgers at a fast foot joint for $3.35 an hour and hating every single second of it. I came home each night smelling like 100% pure beef lard, French fries, and unfulfilled childhood dreams. It was horrible.

On a day off from work a few weeks later, I was playing football with some friends in Riverview Park when my father drove up and interrupted our game to tell me that my boss had called and needed me to come in to work for someone who had called in sick. I got in the car with my dad, changed into my polyester, grease-stained uniform, and begrudgingly reported for work. At that precise moment I realized the impending death of my care-free boyhood could not be avoided. I was miserable.

I quit that job a few days later and resolved to make the most of the time I had left before I was forced to become a responsible adult. Knowing that once I finally became a permanent member of the rat race I would have precious few opportunities to recreate and enjoy the simple pleasures of obligation-free life, I vowed to experience as many fun and memorable things as I could. I planned to take those memories with me wherever life’s journey took me, to sustain me through the dark ages of growing older and being weighted down by the pressures of the real world.

It was a fine plan, and I do have lots of unforgettable memories of my time in high school, many of which are documented in my book Naked Snow Angels. I continued this mission in college, which may explain why it took seven years to earn a four-year degree. From taking a roadtrip with friends from my dormitory to New Madrid to be present for the predicted apocalyptic earthquake that never happened in 1990 to going on an epic roadtrip to Las Vegas with my roommate Bill (who is still working on his four-year degree twenty-two years later,) I did it all and made lots of blurry memories.

Bethany and I eloped and honeymooned in New Orleans in 1996 and I became a father in 2000. Great memories. Sure I’ve had to work to put food on the table, but as soon as any job begins to suppress the kid in me, I find something else that will pay the bills. I’ve been a meat cutter, a groundskeeper, a used car dealer, a dog treat baker, and a writer. More experiences. More memories. Lucky for me, my wife the Enabler has allowed me to drop out of the rat race in order to be a stay-at-home dad. When she sees me playing with our three kids, Bethany often says she has four children. She’s not wrong.

Every now and then, I fall into a rut and catch myself just going through the motions in life. Such has been the case recently. The kid in me hates that. Therefore in 2012, I am rededicating myself to making memories (for me and my family). I’ll write about those experiences in this column. I hope you will be inspired to make some of your own unforgettable memories, too.