Find yourself driving on a remote South Dakota roadway? Give drivers a friendly finger — aka the Dakota digit
We met on a gravel road, its shoulders slumping toward the ditch, the roadway (probably something like the roads around the sign in the above public domain photo posted in wikimedia commons) pocked with holes caused by the steady rain.
I was driving my car, he was aboard a piece of farm equipment that resembled a giant spider. Our eyes met and we both raised our hands, lifting a finger.
It was a friendly moment — seriously.
Because that’s how we greet other vehicles in South Dakota. We wave. We let the other driver know we see them and hope they are having a good day. Some do it with a full sweep of their arm, their hand spread out. Others, often in rural areas, simply raise a finger.
No, not that finger. We lift the index finger and give it a slight turn.
Hello.
It’s accepted behavior here. I have lived in several states and used to salute oncoming traffic that way, out of habit, I guess. It was sometimes returned, but often met by a puzzled gaze. Montanans especially seemed perplexed by it, so I quickly learned to stop doing it.
In the Big Sky State, most people like to be left alone. It’s one reason celebrities like living there, as do wanted criminals. Both seek privacy and they get it in Montana. Movie stars, authors, embezzlers and murderers — they flock to the far corner of the country to enjoy the glorious scenery and the chance to live unbothered and unwaved at by others.
I lived in northwest Montana for six years and learned not to wave at people, not wanting to alarm suspicious, heavily armed folks. It was an adjustment since I grew up flipping folks a friendly finger.
When I was at South Dakota State University, my friend Jim was puzzled why people were waving at him. Jim used to say he was from nowhere since his father was in the military and they moved from state to state. When he came to South Dakota, people waved to him as he drove, and it surprised him.
He finally asked me what was going on, and I had to explain to him why we did it. I don’t think Jim waved back very often, but he grew to accept it.
South Dakotans do it as a remnant of our pioneer heritage. When people came West, they dealt with drought, disease, storms and fires. But equally troublesome was loneliness. People longed for home, for family, friends, familiar landscapes and food.
Norwegian-American author Ole Edvart Rølvaag explored this in his acclaimed novel “Giants in the Earth,” which told of settlers Per and Beret Hansa and their children as they staked a claim in Dakota Territory. The book perfectly captures the desolate beauty of the Great Plains, and the sense of foreboding that creeps up on people who feel adrift on the sea of prairie grass.
What is out there? Is danger disguised by desolation?
The Lawrence and Lavin families settled in Dakota Territory at the same time as the fictional characters in “Giants in the Earth.” They knew the feeling of being away from their homelands in Norway and Ireland, of scratching out a living on the hard soil, unsure of the next day.
My grandfather Lewis Lawrence, born five years before statehood, was marked by tragedy, as his mother died when he was a boy, and his father Knute wandered away from their homestead. Grandpa struggled to survive and roamed from farm to farm, job to job, before returning to rural Estelline to farm as a young man.
He was a tall, imposing man, given to silence and hard living. But he lived to be 86 and taught his children and grandchildren the ways of his state and its people, including waving at vehicles you met on a narrow, winding road.
It’s how we acknowledge strangers and neighbors, how we say, “Hi, we’re glad to see you, glad to see someone.”
So lift a finger. Give folks the Dakota Digit.
Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states and contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets.
