The Jackson County Wave
July 20th, 2007, 4:23 pm · Post a Comment · posted by aubreywoods
Many years ago I wrote a column about a local phenemom that I dubbed “The Jackson County Wave.”
At the time, I had lived here about five years and couldn’t understand the reason people in passing vehicles that I didn’t know bothered to take the time to wave to me or my wife as we met them at an intersection or drove in the opposite direction.
It’s something that still happens to me and my family on a regular basis.
It still often provokes a war of words between me and my wife even niether one of us knows who the person waving is or why they are waving. And now I have a teenage son who could be the focus of the way, which just adds more fuel to the debate between me and my wife.
I grew up in Indianapolis and nobody in that fine city ever took the time to wave if they didn’t know you. Friends often do that in the big city, but never strangers.
After more than 20 years of living in the country, and yes Jackson County, even Seymour, is still the country to us city slickers, I think I’ve figured out why people like to wave.
It’s just their way of acknowledging that they know you exist and have a right to be here and you now know they exist and have that same right. Maybe we need a little more of that in this world.
Or maybe our taxi driver in Playa Del Carmen had it right. Waving keeps makes it easier to keep your hands off a hot steering wheel.
