Yo Buddy, What’s Up?

One of the things I like about the South is the general practice of acknowledging a passerby on foot. In New England if one crosses path with someone walking from the other direction, the other person rarely offers a greeting and if greeted by me, most will not acknowledge having been offered one. Not even a nod of the head. Not so in the south. Most everyone tips their head, raises their hand or offers a pleasant greeting. Men and women alike, old and young, black and white. In the North it is as if they are thinking, “what does this geezer want from me?" Growing up in the Midwest I was accustomed to greeting strangers, the practice is much like it is here in the South.

My family's farm is located in southern Illinois. Whenever I visited as a young man, I walked the dirt roads around the farm. Every time some good Ole boy would pass me in his pickup truck, he would acknowledge me by raising his fingers ever so slightly from the steering wheel, a sort of abbreviated wave. His palm never disengaged from wheel, sometimes I would get an additional nod of the head. My grandmother told me not to assume it was a friendly gesture; but rather it was their way of saying, “Son, we don't know you, but we've seen you. So, don't go causing any trouble around here?”