It is a well-established fact that the name Naughton is synonymous with Excellence. Case in point: I have held two official Guinness Book World Records and may have qualified for two more had I bothered to have them certified. In the 1980s, my mother, my brother Blake, and I were a part of the world’s longest conga line at a Miami Sound Machine concert in Burlington, Iowa. In the 1990s, I participated in the world’s largest blood drive at Mizzou’s Homecoming. In the 2000s, I ate an entire box of Thin Mints in less than eight minutes (at an astonishing clip of four cookies per minute). And in the 2010s, I was the first person known to have eaten 12 Doritos Locos Tacos in one sitting. (I would advise against trying to top that mark. Eating the last three tacos felt exactly like swallowing handfuls of Dorito-flavored sand).
Actual entry from Webster’s Dictionary: “Naughton, (see also, excellence).”
I have not yet, to my knowledge, broken any world records in the current decade. Nevertheless, just last weekend anothermember of the Naughton household accomplished something so incredible that history may judge the feat as more significant than all of my records combined.
While playing the video game Subway Surfers on his smartphone Saturday night, my son Truman Naughton, aged 14 years, posted a higher score than any other human being in the United States of America last week. With a mark of 2,411,122 points, Truman beat the next highest score by over one million points.
Before you judge the significance of this achievement for yourself, it is important to understand some facts about the game Subway Surfers. Since it was released in 2012, Subway Surfers has been downloaded over three billion times and was the most downloaded game on Earth from 2012-2019. It is a safe bet that in any given week, tens of millions of individual games or “runs” are played in the U.S. My son posted the highest score out of all of them—blowing the second highest score completely out of the water.
It is also worth noting how the game is played. Players control a character who has been busted tagging subway cars with graffiti. He or she then runs from the train inspector and his dog on and around subway cars and other obstacles. All the while, the player collects coins for points. As the game progresses, the speed of the trains and the characters gets faster and faster. If at any time the character gets hit by a train or makes contact with an obstacle, the game ends immediately. Unlike most video games, a player only gets one life, which makes achieving a score as high as Truman’s all the more impressive.
Truman’s incredible run lasted for over an hour before his character was suddenly and unceremoniously flattened by a speeding train.
Does Truman’s accomplishment rank as high as Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-points in an NBA game or Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series? Of course it does. Does it eclipse the magnitude of my collection of World Records? Possibly.
When I asked Truman how he would like to memorialize his earth-shattering achievement, he flatly rejected the idea of the city of Ashland throwing a parade in his honor. He’s far too modest for that. After some convincing, he did reluctantly agree to allow a statue of himself to be erected in the city park, however. Until funds can be secured and an artist commissioned to complete the project, Truman will have to settle for a clipping from today’s paper framed with a screenshot of the Subway Surfers leaderboard showing his name on the top.
I think I speak for everyone in Southern Boone County as I offer you, Truman, our sincere congratulations on your remarkable accomplishment. We’re all so very proud of you. Clearly, you are the most successful and beloved person to ever hail from Ashland, Missouri—and perhaps Missouri in general. Nothing you or anyone else will do from now until the end of time can ever eclipse the glory of this moment. In other words, it’s all downhill from here, son.
Yes, it is true that you peaked entirely too early and that the rest of your life will be filled with one bitter disappointment after another, but at least you will always have your high score to harken back to when the ever-darkening days of your hopeless future threaten to engulf you in the inky blackness of unending despair.
Cheers!
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