That Man Who Smiles And Waves

Years ago he spent the weekends in his drive way in front of his garage. He always seemed to be working on some project involving saw horses and wood and hammers and stuff. His big, white dog stood beside him. Always. Somehow regardless of the project, the man managed to hear each car stopping at the stop sign and then turning from my street onto the bigger street -- his street. Each time this stop and turn happened, he'd stop his work and smile and wave. This has been going on for years and years and years. Many years ago the white dog disappeared from the tableau. Someone who used to live on my street said that the dog's name was Lightening. I don't know if that was the dog's name or if the neighbor named the dog himself just to feel closer to the man who smiled and waved and his dog. I'm thinking the dog died after living a long and happy life of monitoring his human's weekend carpentry projects. The years passed until one week day I noticed the man who smiled and waved sitting on a bench at his front door. I stopped at the stop sign and he smiled and waved. I smiled and waved back. I guessed he'd retired and could devote full time to acknowledging those driving in front of his house. More years passed and no matter how often I came down my hill and stopped at the stop sign to make the right turn onto his street, there he was smiling and waving. Except for the past two weeks he hasn't been sitting there.
I'm hoping he's taken his first vacation in over thirty years. I'm hoping he's gone off to a nice beach condo for a month or so. I'm hoping he's sitting on a bench somewhere smiling and waving at people going by on roller blades or bicycles or on foot.
Maybe while he's there one of those people will stop and ask him his name. Maybe one of those beach people will stop and tell him how truly peaceful and comforting it is to know there's someone who just likes to smile and wave.