None Finer Than Branch and Glascock

Next Tuesday, April 5th, Southern Boone residents will have an opportunity to participate in one of the most important municipal elections in recent memory. In addition to deciding who will be Ashland’s next mayor, filling seats on the Board of Aldermen, approving a local use tax, and voting on a no-tax-increase bond issue to improve facilities at the high school including long-overdue upgrades to the football/soccer field and track, citizens will choose who among five candidates are best suited to fill two seats on the SoBoCo Board of Education.

Several people have asked for my opinion on the school board election, and I have told all of them without hesitation that I will be voting for Crystal Branch and Barrett Glascock.

Coach Branch, as she is known by many, is a personal friend of mine and my former coworker at Southern Boone Primary School. I think it is fair to say that no one in the history of our community has done more to support SoBoCo students than Crystal Branch. A graduate of Southern Boone High School, Crystal earned a bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s degree in athletic administration and spent all 24 years of her teaching career and 25 years of her coaching career here in the Southern Boone School District.

Ask any of her former students, athletes, and coworkers and they will tell you that Coach Branch is the best there is.

Even in her free time, Crystal has always been a huge supporter of the young people in our community, attending youth sporting events, school plays and concerts, and FFA functions. Recently, she travelled all the way to Arkansas to watch a former student compete in one track event. Her devotion to the kids in our district has no bounds.

Although she is known as Coach Branch, Crystal is also known for being one of the most highly respected educators in our school district. She was a mentor to many new teachers over the years (including myself) who benefitted from her wisdom and experience. Don’t ever make the mistake of dismissing her as simply a “gym teacher”. Crystal was a professional educator who made a tremendous difference in the lives of her students and coworkers.

 

For all of these reasons, Crystal is the most qualified school board candidate running in this election, rivalled only by Barrett Glascock.

Of all the current school board members, Barrett is by far the most experienced and best qualified for the job. He has served on the board for many years, including in the capacity of board president. In some shape or form, Barrett has had a hand in all of the facility improvements our district has made over the last several years. His vision, leadership, and dedication has made the Southern Boone School District the envy of every “small” district in the state. 

But there’s much more to Barrett than being a school board member. He has been a pillar of the community as a member of the Optimist Club, an organization devoted to serving the youth. He is also a long-time member of the Southern Boone County Fire Protection District Board as well as a certified first responder. Last fall, when I interviewed him for a news story in the paper, Barrett mentioned that he had responded to an emergency call just a few days earlier. A Southern Boone resident had gone into cardiac arrest, and Barrett was the first to arrive on the scene. The patient was unresponsive and had no pulse at the time Barrett began CPR. Thanks to his quick-thinking and years of training, Barrett was able to re-establish a heartbeat and save the man’s life.

Barrett Glascock is a true hero, although he’s far too humble to admit it.

Crystal Branch and Barrett Glascock represent the very best of Southern Boone County. They are two of the finest people you will ever meet, people who have dedicated their lives to serving our community. It is not possible to find two candidates who are more qualified or better suited to serve on our school board. I will be proud to vote for them both on April 5th.

The Pursuit of Happiness

When my eighteen-month-old granddaughter and her parents dropped by our house last Saturday, Freya ran straight to me with her arms held high, eager to show me her new toy, and wordlessly asking me to pick her up. When I did, she immediately curled up in my arms and rested her head on my shoulder. While everyone around us engaged in a boisterous and happy conversation, Freya and I gently swayed back and forth in blissful silence.

I closed my eyes and rested my head on hers while we continued to dance to a song that only she and I could hear. I kept expecting Freya to become restless and ask to get down, but she never did. After a week apart, it seemed that she was as happy as I was to be reunited once again.

Happy isn’t the right word. Relieved isn’t either, though it’s not far off. Perhaps there isn’t a word to describe what we were feeling, but if you’ve ever spent time away from someone you love with every fiber of your being, then you probably know what I’m talking about.

It was a perfect moment.

When Alex, Sarah, and Freya moved into their duplex in Columbia, I was heartbroken, and I was worried that the strong bond Freya and I had forged while she lived with us would inevitably weaken. I was afraid she would forget how much we loved each other, but clearly, I was mistaken. I’ve never been happier to be proven wrong in all my life.

Happiness has proven elusive at various points in my life. I wrote about some of my struggles with bipolar disorder and alcohol addiction last week and in previous issues of the Journal. While I have taken steps to improve my mental health, I have mostly been focused on simply getting out of bed every morning and making it through another day alive and sober. But what about being happy?

The Declaration of Independence says that we are endowed with “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Being alive and liberated from the control alcohol once had over me accounts for the first two of those rights, but now I think it’s time I started focusing on the third one as well. It’s time for me to pursue happiness.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been happy for a large portion of my life. However, that happiness did not magically appear out of thin air. Often, I had to work for it. I had to pursue it, and somewhere along the line, I became less interested in making the effort. Was it because I didn’t know how to have fun without booze? Did the social isolation brought on by the pandemic cause me to lose the hope of finding joy in the world? Did my mental illness cause me to give up on the idea that I could ever be truly happy again?

Whatever the case may be, I know what has made me happy in the past. Making and listening to music, playing and watching sports, spending quality time with friends and family. Hiking and biking, camping and fishing, reading and writing, creating and learning, and so on and so forth. The point is that none of those things will bring me happiness unless I actively pursue them.

The perfect moment Freya and I shared Saturday was not the result of sheer luck. I have continuously worked at building a close relationship with my granddaughter since the day she was born, and I will never stop doing so. She is proof that if I keep pursuing happiness, then I shall have it.

Music to my Ears, Medicine for my Soul

 While shelter-in-place orders were being issued locally and throughout the world in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus back in March of 2020, I was concerned about the first graders of Southern Boone County Primary School. As their long-term substitute music teacher for the 2019-2020 academic year, I knew how much my students were looking forward to performing their spring musical “How to be a Pirate”. I also knew how disappointed they would be if the concert were to be cancelled due to the pandemic.

Thankfully, the show went on as scheduled and was well received by parents, grandparents, and the other members of the audience. And the kids had a blast. A couple of days later, the school district shut down and switched to alternate methods of instruction (AMI), effectively and abruptly ending the most rewarding professional experience of my life.

In the following weeks, I became deeply depressed. While the virus was spreading like wildfire and causing death and misery everywhere it went, I faithfully obeyed county stay-at-home orders and hunkered down in our little house in the woods. The isolation was unbearable. I missed my students. I missed my coworkers. I missed my friends. As I became more depressed, I also felt extremely anxious. The angry, irrational outbursts I was having worried my wife, and after talking it over with her, I decided to reach out for professional help.

To my surprise, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Two years later, I am still trying to manage my illness and find some semblance of happiness.

At the same time the world shut down, my 97-year-old grandmother was taking her final breaths in her assisted living facility where visitors were restricted due to the virus. I said goodbye to her through the window of her apartment, and after nearly a century of life, only ten mourners were allowed at her socially distanced funeral.

I also found out I was going to be a grandparent during this same time period, which was both scary and exciting. With the baby due in early October, my son and his girlfriend decided to live at our house to minimize expenses and minimize their exposure to the virus. I went back to subbing in the fall, and after Freya was born, I became petrified of bringing the virus home from school. I washed my hands and face, changed clothes, and wore a mask every time I held my grandbaby for the first seven months of her life. Every, Single. Time. 

In March 2021, one year into the pandemic, I quit subbing so I could be a stay-at-home grandparent when Alex and Sarah re-entered the workforce. Shortly thereafter, I got my first dose of the Covid vaccine, and by April I was finally able to hold Baby Freya without wearing a facemask. Those first maskless baby snuggles were miraculous, as every snuggle since has been.

In December, Freya and her parents moved into their own place in Columbia, and my mood sank to an all-time low. After spending almost every day together for the first fifteen months of her life, suddenly I found myself alone in my house everyday while the rest of my family was at school or work. While I still get to babysit or visit Freya fairly regularly, life hasn’t been the same since my baby moved away.

Not long after that heartbreak, a close friend died much too young in a car accident. The one thing I could do to help Caleb’s parents navigate their nightmare was to conduct their son’s funeral service. As difficult as it was for me to make it through it, I can only imagine how hard it was for Roy and Buffy and the rest of their family.

Now as the pandemic enters its third year, around six million people have died of Covid-related causes, including close to one million Americans. And if that wasn’t enough death and misery already, Russia started a full-scale war against Ukraine, leading the world closer to annihilation than it has been since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

For someone battling bipolar disorder, the weight of the last two years has been almost too much to bear. It’s enough to drive any man to drink, but in my case, I can’t drink. As an alcoholic in recovery for over five years, I know that picking up a bottle again would be the death of me. So, I am left to cope with the weight of the world and the strain on my soul completely sober.

I call the highs and lows of my mental illness “The Bipolar Express.” It’s like riding the world’s most unpredictable roller coaster. You’re riding high one minute, and the next thing you know you’re dropping into a dark, bottomless pit of despair. 

Often there’s no obvious reason for the change in mood, but sometimes there is a trigger. Recently, another member of my family experienced a frightening mental health crisis, which affected me deeply. Dark thoughts entered my mind and would not go away. Once again, alcohol called out to me, but I managed to hold the demons at bay with the help of a very supportive group of people. Talking about my issues with people who have dealt with some of the same problems has proven very helpful so far, and I am already starting to feel a little better.

And 18-month-old Freya calls me “Pop” consistently now, which is like music to my ears and medicine for my soul.

 

The same could be said about the photo sent to me by a parent of one of my former students. It’s a picture of a proud and smiling pirate taken after her performance as the ship’s first mate in the school musical exactly two years ago last week, right before the entire world went insane. Thank you, Stacey and Ellyse for the reminder that life can be sublimely beautiful if you take the time to appreciate the simple pleasures it has to offer.

Tempted, But Not Attempted

 Hi, my name is Travis and I’m an alcoholic. It has been five years, two months, and two days since my last drink. Thanks to the support of family and friends, healthcare providers, prescription medication, and an earnest desire to set a good example for my children, I have not touched a drop since I downed my final martini on December 31, 2016.

There have been very few occasions since the first months of my sobriety when I have felt an urge to drink. Lately, however, as a pandemic and wars and politics and family crises threaten to crush my soul, I must admit that I have been tempted to pick up the bottle again.

Tempted, but not attempted. 

I tend to be an overthinker. I dwell on things far too long—especially negative things—and my internal monologue can be absolutely relentless. Alcohol was the easiest way of getting the voice inside my head to shut the hell up, particularly at bedtime. Eventually, I came to rely on music, meditation, and medication to quiet my inner voice, or as the Buddha would call it, my monkey mind.

As a recovering alcoholic diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I am prone to falling into the occasional dark abyss of depression. During manic episodes, I often suffer from debilitating anxiety. When I look back, I can see how I used alcohol to deal with the highs and lows of my disorder before I was diagnosed. I’m slowly getting better at noticing the onset of these manic or depressive episodes, and thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, I am able to live with my illness.

However, the last few months have not been good for my mental health. At times, I have struggled mightily. I’ve had to remind myself to take things one day at a time and to not dwell on what may or may not happen in the future. That’s hard for me and my monkey mind to do without a fifth of gin on hand.

But I know I can’t drink because a relapse at this point in time would probably kill me.

Why in the world am I telling you all of this? Because you, dear reader, are my therapist, my sponsor, and my confidante. You’re also my accountability partner. You keep me honest and hold me to my word. Therefore, I promise you that I will continue to focus on my sobriety and my mental health, even though I am tempted at times to give in and/or give up.

If you are struggling right now, I hope by reading this you realize that you are not alone. You and I can struggle together. And together we will take each day as it comes, with the hope that today will be a little bit better than yesterday.

Finally, I would like to thank my family for their love and support. I am lucky to have a wise, compassionate, and extremely patient wife, three kind and thoughtful children, a wonderful daughter “in-law”, a beautiful grandbaby, two brothers, a sister, a father, and other relatives who love me unconditionally no matter how messy life with Travis Naughton can be. To you, my family, I love you more than you could possibly imagine, and if you continue to believe in me, I promise to continue fighting the good fight.

Well, I’d better wrap this up now because I just looked at the clock and realized that I should have taken my pill two hours ago. I’ll probably spend the next two hours trying to get my monkey mind to quiet down enough so that I can fall asleep. 

At least I won’t wake up with a hangover.