The Waving Man

Several years ago I had a recurring work assignment that took me to Lopez Island, a picturesque jewel in the San Juan chain.  My options for getting to the work site included a flight on Kenmore Air or an early morning drive to Anacortes where I would board a ferry for the 40-minute crossing.  Although flying was fun (and fast) I eventually settled on the ferry commute as my preferred mode.

Once on the island I had a thirty minute drive through muddy fields and forests to the work location.  It was on this recurring drive that I began to notice something unusual: most of the drivers I met along the two-lane road that traversed the island would wave as they passed.  It wasn’t a super-enthusiastic gesture, sometimes only involving a single finger lifted from the wheel.  It was the consistency of the gesture, however, that caught my attention.  Almost everyone participated.  And I began to wave back. 

I lived in northern California in the 70’s and 80’s.  When I visited my sisters in Berkeley and we would occasionally pass by “The Waving Man” on Grove Street, a guy standing in his front yard with oversized orange gloves who would wave at the steady stream of cars passing by each morning.  We regarded him as slightly nuts but always waved back as he shouted, “Good morning!  Keep smiling!  Have a nice day!”

So I waved back at the Lopez drivers.  In line for the afternoon ferry I would doze with the window open, listening to the chatter of island regulars catching up on news and gossip. 

And I started waving to drivers in my North Juanita neighborhood as I walked the dog with my wife.  At first I wanted to get some folks to slow down.  I also wanted to convey, “I see you” to the folks I didn’t recognize as regulars. 

After a few months I noticed something.  Although few people slowed down, almost everyone waved back.  Some waved enthusiastically, some more casually, but there was an unmistakable trend of returning the gesture.  This lead to conversations with folks we hadn’t quite met and a general increase in the feeling of neighborhood community.

There remain folks who don’t wave, of course.  And I am mostly limiting my behavior to the confines of a few un-sidewalked blocks around my home.  But the positive feeling is unmistakable.  We’re breaking down some walls that weren’t very thick to begin with.