Intro to Fatootsin

Fatootsin…Not to be mistaken with fatootsed, which, according to the online Urban Dictionary, means “driven to distraction; colossally frustrated; a combination of being worn out from -- and pissed off by -- the offending person or circumstances.”

Quite the contrary…Instead, fatootsin is a stupendous way to release some of that frustration from the “offending person or circumstances.” From fatootsin, a greater sense of self is derived, a greater understanding of the surrounding areas is gained, and a feeling of freedom and relaxation is accomplished.

Simply put by my mother, who coined the term when I was younger…fatootsin is just getting in the car and going. Sometimes you have a plan of your ultimate destination. Sometimes you just head in one direction. While sometimes, you have a general idea of where you want the road to take you but you may find yourself headed on a completely different path once you get started. Kinda like life...

As a child and teenager, fatootsin was a big part of my vocabulary. We did it regularly. I always enjoyed our day trips to different locations from where we lived. There were times we would take the same day trip to the same destination but the trip itself was always different. There was different music from Neil Diamond, Tina Turner, and Cat Stevens to different road games from ‘I Spy’ to the Road Sign ABC game. There was always a lot of laughing and singing, and this is the beauty of fatootsin! Trips to watch the pig races, excursions into the mountains for breakfast, seat-gripping races along mountainous, windy roads, sight seeing into Yellowstone Park, and dirts roads into the next town…it just didn’t matter. The name of our game was exploration.

Granted, our family took many family vacations that involved the big white truck pulling the big white fifth wheel trailer (no airplanes allowed) to different places in the greater northwest. The furthest of these being a 30-day trip up through Canada and south-east Alaska to Haines and on up to Fairbanks then back down the Alaskan Highway through Edmonton, Canada and home to Red Lodge, Montana. These trips are definitely full of memories and many pictures in front of touristy type stuff. Or, they abound in family gatherings and reunions with old friends.

However, fatootsin trips gained the most laughter, the most conversation, and the largest of life lessons with only a few pictures to capture the moment.

So, I sit here now on the precipice of my own fatootsin journeys. I had lost the ‘art’ of fatootsin for many years. But, as I travel into single-hood being a mother of three, beautiful girls ages 2 ½, 9, and 13, I have rediscovered the importance and gratification of exploration and fatootsin as a whole.

Here I will share the journeys in hopes that someone finds their own connection, gains a laugh or two, gets inspired to begin their own fatootsin trips, or just wants to live vicariously through someone else. No matter what direction your path may be leading you right now, I hope that these fatootsin treasures bring you delight and inspire you to always take a look at your own journey. Through them I hope you continually ask yourself “do I like my own path?”

Cheers and Happy Fatootsin!

©Rachel A. Seidensticker is a journalism student at the University of Montana. Inspired by her own childhood fatootsin experiences, she has decided to begin her own fatootsin journeys around her hometown and share them here as well as in her local newspaper.