I’ve heard horror stories about people honking horns at each other. You know how crazy some people are nowadays. If you honk your horn at the wrong person they may take it the wrong way and want to cause you bodily harm. I actually had a lady stop by my office many years ago and ask me to stop honking when I drove past her home. She said it was upsetting her animals. I still honk my horn when I drive past my friend’s houses. A lot of times I see them look out the windows or stick their head out from the back yard and wave.

When I drive through a rural are of the state I like honking my horn at the kids or old timers. I see somebody in their yard and, I as I drive past, I blow the horn and wave out the window of my car. These people instantly wave back and I love the blank stares they develop when they try to figure out who that person is driving that car!

I’m sure many of them are bothered all day long trying to figure out which one of their friends bought a new set of wheels. Can you hear the conversation?

“Verner, who was that?”

“Well Ruth, it looked like Chester’s old truck to me but the color seemed different.”

“You reckon it was Mary Beth’s boy? I heard he may be comin’ in town for a few days.”

“Naw, that boy would be drivin’ one of these fancy cars since he moved to the city and got that fancy office job.”

“Well I wonder who that was? I’m goin’ in right now and call Wilma and ask her if she knows anybody that got a new truck.”

And so the conversation begins. It beats talking about the lack of rain. I figure I’m doing some marriages a great service by giving people something to talk about!

There are a lot of people that still honk at me. A lot of people drive by my office or home and honk the horn and wave. Many times a week I’m left scratching my head wondering who in the world that was. I’m beginning to have trouble seeing even with my glasses on and of course there is no way I can remember all the different cars. Mercy, I sometimes forget what my own car looks like!

Waving and honking has become an outdated way of greeting each other. When I was a little boy, Hufsmith Road was a dirt road. Many of our neighbors, all four or five of them, would drive by and toot the horn. That is all but one of them.

This man was one of the regulars at Mom’s Place in Hufsmith. He was the only guy I have ever met who could prop a beer bottle on his lower lip and talk for an hour with the edge of the bottle stuck to his lip. No kidding, as time passed his lip seemed to get longer and longer as the weight of the bottle would be stuck to the inside edge of his lip.

He drove an old blue Ford pickup. When he would make his way home we boys would occasionally try to out run his truck on our bicycles. He drove at idle speed and his truck seemed to know the way home. As he would pass our house we always knew this man was on the road because his headlights were the only ones on the road that appeared to be going nowhere.

After a couple of minutes his old truck would slowly putt putt down the road headed home. The truck was seemingly being driven by the truck itself instead of the man driving the truck. His home was located near the dead end of Kuykendahl and he always seemed to make it home okay. Yes, Kuykendahl road did in fact dead end at Spring Creek. The road was extended when The Woodlands became populated.

Waving and honking. If you haven’t done it in several years I encourage you to try it. You’ll get a lot of laughs and it helps bring us back to a day when the whole town was your friend.

Clifford

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