My friend, Bob, and I walk around our neighborhood in Baxter several mornings a week. We started during Covid, one on each side of the street. Right from the start, I offered vigorous waves to every car we met. Bob soon joined me in waving. Many drivers waved back. Some smiled.

Side by side now, for three years, in good weather, we have been beating the pavement of Memorywood Drive and adjacent streets, and waving. No one has responded with an obscene gesture. Nobody has tried to run us down.

Pretty much everybody waved at everybody when I was a kid. Sometimes it was a hearty, open hand lifted high in the air. Often it was the pointer finger raised from the wheel. In our rural community, on those dusty back woods roads, everybody seemed to know everybody. Everybody seemed to greet everybody.

Today, living in a small city, I know very few who drive past when we walk. I have no idea if they are economically upper class, lower class or somewhere in between. I have no idea if they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, atheist or somewhere in between. Progressive, moderate or conservative. Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, or somewhere in between. I didn’t know, back when we started, if they were victims of Covid-19 or front-line workers, grieved the loss of loved ones, or thought the whole thing was a hoax. We just waved.

I don’t know if the people I wave at today are employed, working from home, laid off, retired, or somewhere in between. A felon, judge, law enforcement. Concerned about climate change or think it is a hoax.

Everybody gets a wave. I intend my wave to be a salute to their humanity. I am convinced that every one of them is a precious human being just like me. That every one of them is loved and loves just like me. That every one of them could use a little gesture of encouragement to empower them toward living each day to the fullest, for themselves, and for the people like me around them. I know that I personally appreciate every little bit of encouragement that comes down the pike.

Today, February 4, 2024, I am editing this article I first submitted to the Brainerd Dispatch Reader Opinion section three years ago. I sit at my computer in Charleston, South Carolina. My wife, Jennifer, and I are spending two winter months in a camper in the back yard of our daughter, Leah, and her husband, Julien. Trying to stay healthy where there is no snow to shovel, we walk a couple of miles each day. I’m still waving at oncoming traffic in Leah’s neighborhood. This Northerner came with some reservations about the people “down South,” thinking they might be quite a little bit different than myself. Same as when I graduated from sixth grade in Alborn Elementary School and wondered about entering seventh grade together with those unknown kids from Brookston Elementary School. Same as when I graduated with my class of 37 from AlBrook High School and headed off to UMD (Duluth) and my class of 2,000. Same as when Jennifer and I moved to “The Cities” (Minneapolis/St Paul) when I started graduate school. So many unknowns. Likely some fear on my part too.

Now in Charleston, I don’t know the political persuasion of these folks. I don’t know their background. I don’t know if they are rich or poor. Unlike in Baxter, however, I do see African American, Asian American, Middle Eastern, and who knows how many other folks who don’t look or talk like me at all. Almost nobody here talks “Minnesotan.” I’ve noticed, the people here, they wave back, just as enthusiastically, maybe even more so, than the people who travel my own home street. These Charleston people don’t know me either. Sometimes, after us being here for a month, they get their hand up before I do. The mostly African American construction crew that is putting in new ditches and culverts on Leah and Julien’s block, they were super courteous and friendly, even before I waved at them or stopped to talk. Now we joke back and forth each day as I pass them at their work of improving the street for everyone.

Same country. Same planet. Same human race. I am a long way from home. I am in their home as we salute one another. As we honor our shared humanity. As we give thanks for each new day we are given.

The people I meet, every one of them, they are making their way through a limping and troubled world. School shootings, disappeared women of color, suicide rates rising, death-dealing illegal drugs, PTSD, homeless people under bridges—even in our rural communities. No life is immune from the troubles that plague our nation and world. My wave, my salute, no big deal, just a recognition that they are precious human beings and that we are all facing this most difficult age together. Not alone.

There is a big election coming up soon. I hope that everyone gets out to vote. I also hope that we are all able to keep waving at each other once the results are in.

(Taken from Who Will Carry the Fire? More Reflections from a North Woods Lake by Darrell J. Pedersen. Books available at darrelljpedersen.com.)