3 Polite Habits Iowans Don’t Realize Are Unusual Until They Leave
Good manners can feel so ordinary at home that you never think to mention them.
But Iowans who travel often notice that what feels like basic courtesy back home earns a surprised look from strangers.
Here are the small courtesies that can give away an Iowa upbringing.
1. The Farmer Wave
The farmer wave is a small gesture of one or two fingers lifted from the steering wheel to say hello.
Iowa Public Radio calls it a gesture of friendship.
You might lift a finger to a pickup coming the other way and get a wave back.
Many people who grew up with the wave don’t think of it as a custom.
Carry it somewhere new, and you may catch your fingers rising anyway.
Habit wins.
2. The Back-Window Wave
The back-window wave is the do-over.
If you miss another driver’s hello, you stick your hand up high in the back window so the driver can see it in the rearview mirror.
Iowa Public Radio describes it as a way of saying you missed the other driver.
That makes it an apology for a missed hello.
That driver may already be out of sight.
That’s manners at highway speed.
3. Pulling Over for Cars
Pulling over is the courtesy a farm machine can offer the cars stuck behind it.
A 2016 Iowa State University Extension post says growers are very good at getting over as far as they safely can to let you by.
The post, from Clarke McGrath of the Iowa Soybean Research Center, offers road safety tips for fall harvest.
It puts farm equipment at roughly 15 to 20 miles per hour on the road.
At 55 miles per hour, you cover around 80 feet every second, so you come up on a slow machine fast.
Slow down immediately when you see farm equipment ahead.
Be patient until you can pass safely, and give room when a machine makes a wide turn.
So the courtesy runs both ways. You ease off the gas, and the driver ahead eases over.
Both drivers get home.
Farmer Wave Week
In 2014, the governor proclaimed Farmer Wave Week for the wave.
Todd Collins, a morning radio host in Marshalltown, asked for it.
Less than 24 hours later, he found out that Gov. Terry Branstad had approved his request.
The week ran Nov. 9-15 in Iowa.
Branstad even demonstrated his one-finger wave before signing the proclamation.
Collins grew up on a family farm in Carroll County, where, the Farm Bureau says, everyone gave the wave.
A Facebook video of Collins demonstrating the wave had gained more than 330,000 views.
Collins and his station encouraged listeners to start waving when they passed each other on the road.
That meant you didn’t need a tractor to take part.
If you’ve ever waved back at a stranger, you’ve joined something that got a week.
A finger is enough.
Psst! How much do you know about Iowa? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
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Iowa Pop Quiz
Think you know Iowa? See how many of these you can get right.
For a long time, Iowans were told which spot was the state’s highest point?
House Parties and Overnight Guests
Hospitality can mean giving your living room to someone who wants to be president.
National Public Radio, republishing Iowa Public Radio reporting from 2019, calls the house party a long tradition in Iowa and New Hampshire.
One host said she knew the drill when it came to food.
Candidate Beto O'Rourke visited six houses in Des Moines on one Saturday in April.
If you've ever cleaned the house for guests, you know the feeling.
Mona is a small town in the state's north.
In 2019, a county chair in Mona hosted a couple of candidates overnight after they stumped in his living room.
He has been hosting candidates for years.
If you've ever hosted a guest, you know the spare room is the welcome.
Some stay the night.
Meals and Old Coats
In January 2020, the Christian Science Monitor described local women in North Liberty who texted a campaign field organizer almost daily to ask what he would like.
Then they dropped the meal off at the local field office.
Jim Pryke invited the local organizers over every couple of weeks for a big country breakfast.
He once invited the local staffers for Sen. Elizabeth Warren over for a cookout after a Fourth of July parade.
One organizer said his hosts were supposed to give him only a bed.
Instead, they always offered to feed him and made sure he had a car scraper for snow.
You don't need the organizer's politics to recognize the instinct.
You feed the new person.
In Newton, a local woman gave an organizer new to town an old coat of her husband's.
She also gave him directions to the farm store, where she told him you buy everything in Iowa, from clothes to food to car scrapers.
9 Things Iowans Miss Most After They Move Away
Iowans who've moved away keep a list of what they miss.
A short commute is on it, but only one among many.
9 Things Iowans Miss Most After They Move Away
8 Roadside Stops Iowans Send Every Out-of-State Visitor To
Ask Iowans where visitors should stop, and a few of the same places keep coming up.
One of them is a baseball diamond outside Dyersville.
