When I was in kindergarten, my dad taught me something important — how to get truck drivers to “speak” to me. Back then, it was common courtesy for truck drivers to speak to children as they passed by. They didn’t wave or shout. They spoke with their horn.

Dad showed me how it worked.
Truck drivers pulled a cable that hung above their heads — a quick tug‑tug — and the big air horn would sound. To say hello to them, all you had to do was pretend to pull the same cable twice. That was the signal. That was the language.

I told my classmates at school about it.

Our playground sat right beside Highway 11 in Moselle, Mississippi, where big trucks passed by all day long. The road was straight and flat, so you could see a truck coming from far away. My friends and I would play near the fence, watching and listening for the next one.

When we saw a truck approaching, we’d all run to the fence and do the little “pull the cable” motion. Almost every truck answered us. The sound of those horns filled us with joy. We’d cheer, jump up and down, and run along the fence with the truck as it rolled past.

If a driver didn’t “speak,” we took it personally.
We’d shake our fists at him — tiny, dramatic, kindergarten anger — as if he had broken some sacred rule of childhood.

But most of them did speak.
And every toot felt like magic.

It was a simple thing, but it meant everything to us.
It made us feel seen.
It made us feel connected.
It made us feel like the world was friendly and full of people who cared enough to say hello.