Growing up in a farm community, waving to people as they passed by was second nature. I never really thought twice about it. A few fingers or the whole hand, it all depended on how you were driving or what you were doing when they drove by the house. But we always waved.
Thirteen years later, it's time to get friendly again. Since moving up here, I've noticed that if you see a 23 or 26 county vehicle, you wave. After all, there's a ninety-five percent chance that whoever is in that car will be waving as well. So now, I place my hand on the steering wheel in a way that I know I can wave if I meet someone on the road. It sounds weird...even weirder to type it but it's true. Somehow I'm not sure a giant head nod is good enough. The even stranger thing is that I find it somewhat comforting to see people waving at each other. It gives me hope that maybe my kids will grow up knowing what it means to be friendly even if you don't know the person on the other side.
In fact, this past weekend a friend of mine came up to see how the country folk live. Keep in mind, this woman very rarely ventures off of the interstate. But her GPS got her here with no trouble. And the first thing out of her mouth was that people kept waving to her as soon as she pulled into town. I couldn't help but smile. She got her first taste of this simple, friendly little life that we're building here. And I was so glad that it was something as simple as a wave.
Oh, and if you're wondering if she reciprocated the wave...she doesn't wave at strangers.
No comments:
Post a Comment