Do you wave?

I happened to catch the Steuben Day parade down 5th Avenue this weekend, and there were some politicians at the beginning of the parade, waving and shaking hands with people. One smiling woman approached me with a pamphlet and her hand out, ready to shake hands with me. In order to avoid her I dropped to the ground, began spitting on myself, screaming, and flopping around as if I were having an epileptic seizure.

So I guess my answer to your question would be "No."

I don't know kicky. It sounds like you do wave-- just in a very big way.

My father has been campaigning and he has very funny stories about those who do respond. Some flip them off, some wave, some wave and honk. A few wave their pinkies in his general direction as they are talking on their cell phones.

I wave at anyone I pass in the neighborhood..

But, politicians? Politicians in parades?

NO!

Only goodbye

This thread wasn't about what I was hoping. I thought it might be about something squinney referred to- just waving at people in general.

When I was a boy, sometimes after church my dad would just go driving with us - out in the country, through other neighborhoods; an old fashioned joyride, just on a whim and for the heck of it.

Once, when he was hanging his arm out the window and waving at strangers who (I seem to remember) mostly smiled and waved back,
I asked him "Daddy, why are you waving at those people? You don't know them!"
I'll never forget his half-smiling, half-indignant answer - it said volumes about my dad -

"So what?"

Sunday drives... those were the days.


On the wave re politics thing, I'm not the most physical protester you've ever heard of. I usually just yell back and forth in my own mind. But a few years ago I did stand with the Women in Black in front of a county building - this was in the time leading up to our going into Iraq. I would have done it more often, but I was working most of the times they did the "just standing there" thing.

Anyway, I was a little worried, since we were next to a major highway through the town, who knew what fool would get violent at us. Some did, in some other places. But not where we were. People in trucks and cars waved, and some honked. Not everybody of course, but a goodly number. And no shaking fists... The waves felt good.
Turned out to be a kind of call and response, though a quiet one.

At Eastertime, some guy gets dressed up
as an unarmed version of the Easter Bunny,
stands on a bridge near La Guardia Airport
and waves at traffic flowing beneath.

I wave back to him.
David

what a delightfuly insane childhood you must have had, we don't have an armed version of the easter bunny where i come from

Out in the hills of Oklahoma if two pick-ups pass by each other on a two lane, they wave. If a bus full of cheerleaders passes by a bunch of citizens on a street corner and they wave, the citizens wave back.
If a boat passes your dock out there on Lake Tenkiller, you'd better wave or people will think you are some kind of hermit


Early on after we arrived in New York City to stay, we took the ferry over to Staten Island. About in the middle of the harbor a second ferry passed by us on her return run. All of the tourists on board were waving furiously at us and, as one, all of the tourists on board our boat responded in kind.

But none of the commuting New Yorker/New Jerseyites did.
They sat. They read. They dozed.

"Well, "said L,"That's another difference in living here. You don't say 'Excuse me' you say 'Watch your back.' and nobody waves."

Joe(Hey, how you doing?)Nation

My neck of the Pocono's is waving country--eventually the incomers from NY and NJ learn to smile and wave.

R those unnatural activities ?

Unnatural?

Just the custom of the country.

While in the city, OmsigDavid, oh, excuse me, OMSIGDAVID, the only people who smile and wave more than the tourists are the hookers.

J N

and the politicians

Love the line from the new Robin Williams movie:


Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason.

Joe(cracks me up)Nation

When I lived in NY and rode its subways, it always struck me how insanely possible it was to be so very alone in a city of 10 million people. New Yorkers don't wave at strangers, they don't make eye contact with strangers. This is not because the typical New Yorker response to such gestures is insane anti-social behavior, but because in a city of 10 million (or however many there are now) there are a whole lot more nuts who will than in the Poconos or the South. Try waving to and making eye contact with strangers in NY for a month and, unless you never leave your apartment building, you will find out why New Yorkers don't do it.

When I moved to North Carolina I found all the wavings, and smiling and eye contact of strangers to be peculiar and unsettling. I frequently had the urge to check for my wallet. Of course that was just residue NY paranoia and I came to not only very much appreciate the behavior, but practice it.

Dallas is somewhere between NY and Charlotte, but that's probably because of all the damned yankees that live here.

Except for the nuts, I think strangers around the world like it when you say hello or wave to them. It's a good thing to do, and so unless you live somewhere where the possibility is good that you will meet a nut 5 different times in a day, you should do it.