This happened on one of those between-winter-storms days a couple of weeks ago when everyone in the entire Upper Cumberland seemed to be going somewhere. I was at the red light on Jackson where it intersects Willow, heading east and first in line just next to the right-turn-only lane beside McDonald’s. The driver in the car to my left beeped his horn and motioned for me to roll down my window.
I’m serious about personal safety, including when I’m driving. The last thing I want when I’m out and about is to be knocked in the head and kidnapped.
So I’ve always locked my car doors, even back in the day when that meant struggling to stretch and reach and manually mash down all the buttons. And most of the time, no matter the season or weather, I’ve driven with my windows rolled up. The exception was back in the 1970s in my very first car, a straight-shift Ford Pinto with black vinyl seats and no air-conditioning. I lived in Atlanta, where nine months out of the year, I would have suffocated with the windows closed.
Though I enjoy push-button locks and climate control and lots of other features on modern cars, I’m old-school enough to long for the days of crank windows. Days when the phrase “roll down the window” really meant roll down the window. I grieve that the human race has grown so soft and lazy that you can’t even buy crank windows in new vehicles—including Jeeps and base-model Chevy Silverados–anymore.
Which brings us back to the guy at the red light. When he motioned for me to lower my window, he used the hand motion for crank, which was so startling that it reduced my suspicion–at least a little–that he might be a carjacker.
He had long stringy hair and was smoking a cigarette. From his rearview mirror dangled an upside-down miniature Confederate flag on a stick. Though I’ve happily lived 98 percent of my life on this side of the Mason-Dixon line and am not ashamed to admit I actually like the silly little poem that goes “Southern born, Southern bred and when I die I’ll be Southern dead,” I’m no fan of the Confederate flag. But maybe this guy wasn’t either. Maybe the fact that it was upside-down was his subtle way of conveying that.
But before I had time to ponder that question, he said: “Ma’am, I need to ask you to do something real illegal.”
I checked to be sure my doors were locked. I almost rolled the window back up. But because I’m forever and always in search of a newspaper column and because I didn’t see any sign of a weapon or any way this man had time to exit his car and get into mine or even toss illegal contraband through the window, I said, “What?”
“I need to cross Willow and then pull into Walgreen’s.” He pointed to Walgreen’s. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to change lanes in time.”
“Probably not,” I told him.
“So…when the light turns, will you let me jump ahead of you and move over into the right lane?”
I pondered his question for a couple of seconds. What he wanted to do didn’t seem all that illegal. But before I answered, should I ask him about the upside-down flag? Did we have time before the light turned green to discuss whether it meant he was in favor of slavery and secession or against it? Even if his answer was not what I was hoping for, should that stop me from offering kindness to a stranger? Wouldn’t I hope somebody would do the same for me if I found myself in the wrong lane?
“Sure,” I said.
When the light turned, he darted over in front of me and gave me a wave in his rearview mirror. I waved back. Then I drove home and wrote this column.
(February 7, 2026)