Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 7, 1993 TAG: 9302050007
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEVE KARK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HOME IS WHERE WAVING'S A WAY OF LIFE
On a recent morning I was driving up the road with no particular destination in mind.Rain clouds that had been hanging above the hollow for several days had drifted east overnight, leaving the air fresh and clean. The views from the ridges were wide open, the sky overhead clear and blue. It was nice to get out of the house for a change.
After a while, I passed a man digging postholes using a bit mounted behind his tractor. He waved. I waved and continued down the road.
A little farther on, I met another driver coming from the opposite direction. The dirt road was narrow enough that we both had to pull over some. I nodded at him. He nodded in return and snapped a quick wave off the steering wheel.
Although I'd noticed it before, the brief greetings on the road that day got me to thinking. We were, after all, strangers. Why should we feel - how shall I say it? - obliged to extend any sort of greeting between us?
As I continued on, it happened several times more. As I've said, this kind of thing isn't something I just noticed. Ever since my wife and I moved out this way, we've both seen a lot of people wave when you pass them on the road.
Furthermore, there does seem to be a pattern to where one can expect a wave: Your chances improve proportionally to how rural the road is on which you're driving.
A narrow dirt road is best. Your chances fall precipitously when you hit the asphalt, and drop to nil by the time you hit a major state route.
I suppose you might say that the factor here is speed: You drive slower on dirt roads and, therefore, have more time for waving. But that ain't necessarily so.
I've noticed that people in town don't wave, even when they're driving slowly. Indeed, the kind of gestures one is likely to encounter in town bear little resemblence to any form of greeting.
When people in town do wave to a passing motorist, it's usually pretty obvious that they're friends. They never wave at strangers in town; that's asking for trouble. But we do it all the time out here in the country.
We tend to wave at our neighbors when we pass them on the road, whether we know them or not. And, I suppose, most of us this far out figure anyone driving out this way - except during deer season - is more likely to live here than not.
I've decided that the wave exchanged isn't so much a greeting as it is a sharing. It's not, "Hi, I know you!" Instead it's, "Hi, ain't this been some rain? I couldn't get these posts in 'til today." Or, "How you holding up? Was your road washed out, too?"
It's an understanding and an appreciation. We like it out here, despite the muddy roads and the occasional windstorm that takes out a power line here or there.
We may be strangers, but we know we've decided to live in a place where we'll be the first to hear the tree frogs in the spring and the last to hear the katydids in the fall.
So for my own use I've pretty much adopted a quick nod as my usual form of greeting along our road. And sometimes I'll even raise my hand in a brief wave off the steering wheel if I've seen the person before.
There's nothing unusual in this; it's the way things are done out here.
Steve Kark is an instructor at Virginia Tech and a correspondent for the Roanoke Times & World-News. He writes from his home in scenic Rye Hollow, in a remote part of Giles County south of Pearisburg.