Where Are You From?

By: Travis Naughton

I was born in Kirksville, Missouri, but lived in the small towns of Canton, Kahoka, and La Plata, Missouri, before starting kindergarten in Clarinda, Iowa. In first grade, I attended school in Kirksville. In second grade, I was in La Plata. In third grade, I attended Oakwood Elementary School in Hannibal. In fourth grade, I moved across town and attended Mark Twain Elementary. By the time I was nine years old, I had lived in eight different places. Then my parents got divorced. While a student at Mizzou, I moved twelve times. Later, after graduating from college, Bethany and I lived with her sister Charla in Liberty, Missouri, for a short time before moving to Muncie, Indiana, for Bethany’s first job as an occupational therapist. After her three-month assignment ended, we moved back to Columbia for a year before buying our first house outside of Hartsburg, MO, in 1999, where we lived for fourteen years. When we outgrew that house, we bought a bigger one just down the road, one with an Ashland address. That is where we have lived ever since. It’s hard to give you a firm number if asked how many places I’ve lived. It’s safe to say that I have moved well over twenty times. The number of addresses I could technically claim to have lived at when counting all of my parents’ moves after their divorce is probably closer to forty.

See more in this weeks Boone County Journal