Travel and Our Roots

*A version of this article was published in the Huffington Post

March is Women’s History Month! Here at Taking Root, we’re thinking about the women who have guided us and defined the world of travel. We’re thinking about women like Amelia Earhart and the Harvey Girls as well as others who are carving out success stories of sustainable travel today. We’re on the lookout for women who have served as pathfinders and leaders, women who have influenced us and our craft. All month we’ll be focusing on women who have inspired us to travel. And we hope that you’ll share your favorites as well.

In a recent Huffington Post blog, I explored the axis point that makes travel possible: home. As much as I have been thinking about the women leaders in travel, I have also been thinking about the women closest to me, those women who have influenced me more than any other. The more I travel and the farther I go, the more I feel a pull toward home (real and imagined) and my roots. When part of me seeks salvation from feeling perennially uprooted, I yearn for something rural, a place where I know my neighbors.

The place that I imagine is not unlike my mother’s hometown of Crane Missouri. By way of facts, Crane is a small town located in Southern Missouri with a population just over 1,000. If you weren’t looking for it, you might just pass it by in search for something bigger or more interesting. But as with most small towns, the character and the identity is in the people, and in their traditions. Crane Missouri was home to my grandfather, a doctor and my grandmother, a home economics teacher. It is where my mother spent her formative years. I believe within this American small town, there is the thread of a legacy for me that stretches beyond simple lineage. And I look to the women of my life and the traditions of a place like Crane to show me how we might be better at bringing communities together, not just as part of a distant past but in order to forge a new kind of future. A future where we draw from the traditions and our communities to rekindle a sense of home: belonging.

One such tradition, happens in Crane every August when 10,000-20,000 people descend on this small town for carnival rides, petting zoos, and two-days of feasting on chicken and potato salad for a festival known as the Crane Broiler Festival. The festival had it’s start in 1952 sponsored by the southwest Missouri broiler growers association, an assorted lot of 60 “growers” in Stone County. During it’s early years, as the website boasts, all of the chickens were raised locally. Also starting in 1952 was a beauty pageant. The winner each year is crowned with the title Miss Slick Chick. (A title my mom held in 1956).

It is true that these days, that the chickens are no longer raised locally. True also, that many of the local businesses of Crane’s Main Street that pulled together to start the Broiler Festival and the pageantry have long since vanished, along with my grandparents. Yet, I cannot help but think that it is something much more than nostalgia that makes me want to cheer for the uninterrupted history that will lead us to the 59th annual Crane Broiler Festival in 2011. These days, I cannot help but think of Crane, Missouri as a powerful beacon of community. This is especially true as we face real threats to the rural character and identity of small towns. I look to celebrations and traditions like the Crane Broiler festival to hold the threads of community that link us to our culture and our past. Travel has a deep history in going away and returning home. And a new ethic of travel makes me wonder if we might draw that circle a little closer, walk a little slower, and connect more deeply and more meaningfully to the communities we visit. It might just spark a renewal, a sense of home. If you’re stopping through Crane late this summer, do take part in this bona fide Americana.

I hope that for all of us, Women’s History Month is the month that we explore the traditions and celebrations of home.