Make like a Midwesterner and wave ‘hi’ — at anyone and everyone

“Was someone waving at you?” my husband asked.

We were returning from our customary walk to the railroad tracks on 99E and passing the neighbors’ house, the family with lots of children, and I had just waved enthusiastically at the front window.

“No, no one was waving,” I said, “but when I walk by this house I always think ‘what if one of those cute little kids is in there looking out of that big living room window, and they can see us but we can’t see them because of how the light reflects, and they’re all excited because they know us, and they’re frantically waving, and I don’t wave back?’ That would be terrible.”

Paul said carefully, after a long pause, that such a thought would never in his entire life have occurred to him.

I also wave when we walk by the older gentleman’s house to the south of us, because if Max is sitting in the living room, he can see us clearly but we can’t see him, again because the light reflects off the window, and it would be so sad if we didn’t wave at him.

I also wave when the Amtrak trains go by when I’m working outside, because I know there are real people in there, and maybe they would just love some human connection. They gaze out the window and everyone ignores them until they get to that red barn just north of Harrisburg, and that lady out in her dahlia bed can be counted on to wave with her whole arm high up in the air. “Hello, I see you! Have a nice trip!” she says.

I blame it on growing up in Minnesota where you’re expected to say “Hi” to everyone you encounter in the grocery store and wave to everyone you meet on the road as well as farmers in the field when you drive by. Fellow humans must be acknowledged and not ignored. To do otherwise is rude.

I think it’s a lovely way of life.

There’s a whole range of waves there, from one index finger lifted from the steering wheel — the farmer wave — to the enthusiastic wave and smile when you’re getting the mail and Mrs. Jorgenson from down the road drives by.

There’s also the rarely used window-wiping royalty wave, which I’ve used only once, back in the 1980s when my sister Margaret and I accidentally turned down the parade route one July day in Willmar, Minnesota. While she desperately tried to find a side street to turn onto, I decided to make the most of the moment, waving elaborately and smiling at the crowds on the sidewalk like I was the Meeker County Dairy Princess or maybe even Queen Elizabeth.

Margaret was mortified.

I didn’t realize how my Minnesota ways had rubbed off on my children until we visited my in-laws in Oregon when our oldest son was about 8 years old. He asked if he and a cousin could walk to the Smucker warehouse half a mile away. I said yes, and they left.

Suddenly, my mother-in-law hurried outside and drove off in her car. A few minutes later, she returned. “I looked down the road and saw Matthew waving at truck drivers,” she explained. “So I drove down there and told him not to do that. It’s not safe.”

Later, privately, I told Matt he can wave all he wants. Farmhands in seed trucks on Powerline Road aren’t going to pull off the road to bother a little boy waving. I was happy to see him acting like a Midwesterner.

My mother-in-law grew up in Pennsylvania, and I wasn’t sure if this caution was an East Coast custom or an Oregon rule.

We moved into a house next to Interstate 5 in 1994, and my children loved to walk to the nearby overpass with me and “honk trucks,” our family’s version of waving at passing traffic. The kids would stand at the guard rail and pump their arms up and down when a semi-truck approached on the highway down below. If the driver honked, the kids were thrilled.

One day when Matt and Amy were about 11 and 9 years old, they asked to go by themselves. I said yes, as they had proved their sense and caution on the road.

Soon they came slinking home, wide-eyed and ashamed. A policeman had stopped and told them to go home. He didn’t trust them not to drop rocks on vehicles.

I assured them that we all know they would never do such a thing, but there are bad people who would, and he was only being careful.

In the years since, I’ve concluded that Oregon people wave at people they know and not at random strangers. This creates a problem, though, because it’s often hard to see who’s driving a car until you’re right beside it, and I am terrible at recognizing vehicles.

So I wave a lot, just in case. A few fingers off the steering wheel, a quick wrist wave to drivers when I’m on a walk, even a full-arm wave to the afternoon Southwest plane curving overhead and coming in to land in Eugene.

Connection from one human to another is the goal, and better too much than not enough — that’s what I think, and I’m sure every Minnesotan would agree.