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WAVING FOR PEAS ON A DEEP SOUTH SUNDAY AFTERNOON
Way back when…
My brother Ronny makes me laugh so hard at Sunday lunch that the English peas in my spoon suddenly fly through the air and scatter onto the dining room floor.
Just to keep the insanity going, I suddenly proclaim, “Peas on Earth!” which of course escalates the merry chaos.
Mother remains calm and stares at us till we retrieve all the spilled goods and resume our meal. Dad pretends he hasn’t noticed.
Later this afternoon, back here in the 1950s, Dad takes Mom and us kids on an afternoon drive through the backwoods of Alabama. On the red dirt roads and blue highways, we take delight in counting cows, reading road signs aloud, and waving. And smiling at imagined friends.
Waving and waving back is an important pastime here in the rural countryside. Trading smiles with strangers is a ritual that somehow makes us feel more secure, more at home, more at peace in an otherwise troubled land.
We even wave at pets and farm animals and feral beasts.
We pass front porches filled with smiling wavers, waving smilers. We feel special. For one split second after another, our presence is noted. For one split second after another, we pay attention to the living and the lives that are taking place in unfamiliar neighborhoods.
This is our rolled-down-window view of the real world, not the make-believe world of movies and radio and television and books and church sermons and droning teachers.
Sure, we learn a lot of abstract things by paying attention to media and preachers and instructors, but the real visceral learning comes from reaching out. Waving and smiling never fail to bring spontaneous comradeship and connection.
But this golden Sabbath road trip after family breaking of bread becomes an indelible memory that carries through the years till right now.
I still wave and smile at strangers. Those who pay attention always respond in kind. Those whose eyes are glued to their palms miss the moment, the moment that will never repeat itself.
So, I salute all you smilers and wavers. Without your passing presence I don’t know how I would get through the day in one piece, living in peace, and enjoying occasional spasms of peas on earth
Jim Reed © 2021 A.D.
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