Waves

I have been driving the same morning commute each day for nearly ten years.  I listen to audio books, podcasts and my friends and family know that they will have my undivided attention if they want to call me.  Living in the South, I've become familiar with complete strangers that have waved to me as I pass by each morning or evening.  While the Englishman does not understand nor approve of this non-British behavior, I participate and return a single wave.

For many years, at the start of my commute down a lonely, questionably paved back road, a tall, weathered black man stood at the end of his driveway with his two granddaughters as they waited for the bus.  The first two years, the smaller child would dance excitedly as her older sister boarded the bus and the grandfather would always wave at me as I paused until the bus ventured along.  One August, the day came when the younger child was finally able to join her sister.  When the bus schedule changed slightly, it was very rare that I saw the grandfather but with school out due to the quarantine, I spotted him last week, standing at the end of his gravel driveway in his housecoat and slippers and we waved at each other like old friends.

Further on my commute, I pass farmland  and railroad tracks and sometimes I attempt to race the train if I am in a rush.  An older woman wearing comfortable pants, white sneakers and a straw hat covering her silver hair, briskly walks down her long dusty driveway, turns left and walks carefully along the edge of the road.  When she reaches her neighbor's driveway, she turns left again and heads for the house.  No matter which part of her journey to visit her neighbor, she waves and I wave back.

My final wave might be my favorite.  Each evening when I leave work, I head down a long rural road.  It's lined with fields of cows and goats and old abandoned cars.  When I reach the small town of Mesena, there is a stocky black man who walks down the center of the road.  When he sees my car, he moves to the side of the road and he waves.  I return the wave.  For years, he would turn around and peer at me, puzzled at my very existence.  Then came the day when something changed.  He was sporting glasses and when I waved back, he continued on his way, moving into the center of the road once again.