School will be starting next week and things will be settling down into the regular old routine again, including that morning trip to Newgulf to drop Dillon at school. My city friends think its weird that I drive about 10 miles round trip just to drop him at school in the mornings (Ha! They oughta talk to some of my friends that drive from Wharton and Hungerford twice a day!). Moreover, they think its extremely weird that I actually ENJOY this drive every morning. The ones who don't get it have just never lived in a small town. They don't know about "wave and smile traffic".
Every morning you see pretty much the same friends on the road and everyone waves and smiles. Over, and over, and over again. Who can't help but get a good start on their day that way? If you're still not in a good mood by then, just stop by Vette's or the store and get an actual howdy and hug from friends you're sure to find there. I mean no matter how bad or hectic your morning started out, there's just no excuse to leave our little community without a smile on your face in the morning. If all those waves and smiles don't make you grin, then honey you need to live somewhere else for a while so you appreciate them again. They are special indeed.
I guess the wave is just a small town thing? Of course it's not just a morning thing, anytime during daylight hours when you meet someone you know on the road, you wave. It's just the polite thing to do. Every kid secretly practices and perfects their wave when learning to drive. Come one... admit it, you did it too at age 15 or so? Its something of a coming of age ritual, every bit as important (and more frequently used than) parallel parking. Theres a few basic categories of wave: hand on the wheel, hand off the wheel, left and right variations, and further refined by number of fingers used. Theres the hand on the wheel pointer finger wave, usually accompanied with a head nod - "I'm too cool to really wave at you, but I acknowledge you" wave; the two finger vee/peace - "heyyy" wave; the whole hand - "hi there friend" wave; the thumb and forefinger (like an imaginary gun) wave; and scores of others. I'm a four finger left hand on the wheel-er myself. It's almost a "hi there friend" whole hand wave but since I usually have a heavily caffinated beverage in the other hand, gotta keep that thumb on the wheel. You really don't want me actually IN your front seat with you, right? haha Rarely seen of course is the angry middle finger wave, and though its common in the city it tends to me much more scarce around these parts. Perhaps because everyone here knows where you live? And they might tell your Momma on you. Or your Grandpa - yikes! LOL
Maybe a true test of small town road hospitality is if you wave when a stranger waves at you? Of course we've all waved by mistake at someone in a vehicle that looks exactly like a friends (at least you think it does coming at you at 70mph), only to have an embarassingly "oops" moment when its a stranger giving you a wack look. There is a gentleman down the road from us with the same model and color truck as Dollie's. Poor guy must think I have a crush on him or something... seems I'm always waving at him. LOL My husband will wave at absolutely anybody who waves at him, especially when he drove his white dually (a common truck in our area). We'll be driving along and he exchanges waves and I'm like "who was that"? He's all "No clue. But they waved.". Oooo kay!
So limber up those fingers and hands my friends; if you see me coming, you BETTER wave! =)
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