In urban areas, where most folks are strangers and can’t hold one another accountable, some drivers comfortably use sign language to tell fellow travelers of their pent-up frustrations. As a result, city drivers often see a middle-finger salute during commutes to and from work.
When I moved to a rural region, I realized one of the bonuses of country life is local drivers don’t do this. Rural motorists often know one another or they know the other person’s friends and family. It wouldn’t do to flip off the boss or preacher and then have to come up with a lame excuse such as, “But I was only adjusting my garage door opener.” Instead of insulting one another, country drivers greet everyone, friend or stranger, with the “country wave.”
While urban dwellers easily identify the one-fingered address so often used in their home district, it takes time to realize rural drivers acknowledge everyone they meet on a two-lane road with one of several variations of the friendlier rural salute. Big city visitors to the country must learn this greeting holds no malice, no frustration, no anger. It’s a neighborly, “Good to see you.”
While the one-fingered salute’s only variation involves which hand to use to express those negative feelings, the “country wave” has several presentations. Like their stressed out urban counterparts, rural residents can also choose to issue their friendlier greeting with either the right or left hand. What is necessary to position a relaxed palm between 10 and 2 o’clock at the top of the steering wheel.
When an oncoming vehicle closes in enough that each driver makes eye contact, the person waving has to decide, “One finger–or two–or maybe all four”? The concern with one finger is that the other driver could misinterpret it as one of those rude city salutes. It takes confident drivers who probably knows their recipients to use a pointer finger wave.
Another more common variation of this greeting involves keeping the palm on the top of the steering-wheel, but instead raising pointer and middle fingers in a synchronized movement. This action doesn’t expend much more energy, and it’s easier for oncoming drivers and passengers to see. Pick-up and truck drivers, in particular, prefer this version of the “country wave.”
Some drivers are so relaxed cruising rural roads they find themselves keeping both palms on the wheel and incorporating a gleeful four or even eight digits wave to greet the driver coming their way. Bold as it is, this is an acceptable variation of the less obvious one or two fingered greetings.
My cousin who lives near Denver recently visited. He told us how much he enjoyed driving section-lines where neighbors acknowledge one another and strangers with “the wave.”
Those who live in rural areas know they have more blessings than they can count. One of those is the simple “country wave” that says, “Always good to see you.”
Native Kansan Karen Madorin is a local writer and retired teacher who loves sharing stories about places, people, critters, plants, food, and history of the High Plains.