Best ever wave of recognition!
When I’m out driving in my Series about town and I see another Land Rover I rarely get a wave. Most Rovers I see around my area are late model Disco’s or Rangies, I doubt their drivers even recognize my Series as a Land Rover! All their ignorance and aloofness was forgiven yesterday when I received the biggest, heartiest wave I’ve ever seen from an elderly woman (think Clara Peller of “where’s the beef?” fame) in an early model Disco 2. She was driving by herself and getting ready to merge on to I-95 but still had her arm out the window giving me the full “window washers wave” looking over and smiling at me. I literally laughed out loud and gave a big wave back, she had made my day.
As I drove on I was wondering what was the source of the elderly woman’s connection to Land Rovers. Her excitement in seeing a Series obviously stirred some pleasant memories. Maybe she grew up with them in the U.K. and seeing a Series brought back fond memories of her homeland. I prefer to think that she was reminded of a “great adventure” earlier her in life, where a Series truck was used and figured prominently in a safe and successful passage. I imagine a trans-continental African trek, much like the “Born Free Redux” account in the Rovers North News or perhaps she was a compatriot of Joy and George Adamson in Kenya. I’ll never know what exact memories the site of my Series stirred in her but I’m willing to bet it was of a hard-working beast of burden type Series transporting its occupants safely thru uncharted and undeveloped foreign lands. Appropriately, she still pilots a Land Rover as she navigates the urban jungles of the United States, long may she ride.
