Farm Stories – The Country Wave

Living in the country, you see your neighbors driving on the gravel roads most every day. They are going to town, to jobs in town, or hauling grain. Everyone seems to have their own way of waving. A hand on the steering wheel, two fingers go up with a quick shift to the right. Some wave their hands in a quick up-and-away motion. Or there’s a hand out the window. You don’t see a lot of that nowadays. Everybody has their windows up. Then there’s the wholehearted wave for a friend or someone who hasn’t been seen for a while — hand and arm out the window, with a vigorous wave. People in town may not have the wave tradition. Maybe it comes from being neighbors and associating more informally.

It may not seem to mean much, the casual wave, but if someone stops waving at you, their motive and what’s wrong with them come to the surface. You question what has happened to bring about this unexplained action, or lack of action. Immediately, a question arises of what I could possibly have done to cause such rude behavior. It becomes evident that the country wave has more meaning and value than one might think.