I was in La Crosse for a meeting the other day when a driver ahead of me on 4^th Street became upset with the pedestrian pace of the car in front of her. She darted right around him and darted left if front of him as quick as a fish swimming downstream.

The drivers around her, guardians of their own place in the swimming lane hierarchy, began honking their horns. In the chaos of lane shuffling and horns blaring, I ended up directly behind her. Thinking I was the source of her misery, she set about her revenge, driving as slow as a rubber necker passing a car wreck.

I tried passing on the right and she quickly changed lanes. I tried passing on the left and she beat me to the hole. Finally, tiring of this snail’s race, she allowed me to pass, whereupon she greeted me with the one-finger salute. That greeting we reserve for the special people in our lives.

I smiled. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders at her knowing the greeting was intended for the green Chevy ahead of her. Or perhaps for some other misery left behind her that day.

For perspective, she might have glanced over at the Mississippi River bluffs. She lives in a land as deep as the blue sky. The topography follows our disposition. It has its ups and downs; but summit a ridge and everything becomes clearer.

Farmers, who generally wave from their tractor seats with all five fingers, have this perspective. My son-in-law, who farms up on the ridge, sets upon his chores with a sense of humor. You have to when you’re living depends on rain and the random movements of weather patterns. His good nature is as endless as a 16-hour day.

That’s not to say that the Driftless area inhabitants don’t know hardship as well as Flatlanders. The folks up on the ridge peer warily at the clouds during windstorms, while valley dwellers keep one eye on the creek in rainstorms. Yet my grandfather, who farmed near Westby and built a barn out of the remnants of a cyclone, would suggest that optimism is built from the loose ends of pessimism.

It is perhaps the rugged slopes of our resiliency that define us more than the topography. We are Driftless in our resolve.

Resolve takes the shape of patience, waiting in line at the post office for the lady at the window to find her checkbook buried in her purse amid Shopko coupons. Our fingers are preoccupied grasping packages addressed to loved ones who have moved from the Driftless, and our horns are muted, talking to the person next in line about the unpredictable nature of weather and grandchildren.

Resolve in the form of tenacity, as when the winds shred our barns and the rains fill our valleys. We pitch in and help. Or we commiserate, knowing that the random movements of funnel clouds and ten-inch rains could just as easily chosen our piece of the world.

So if sluggish cars and one-fingered drivers have you mumbling to yourself, or life takes a sudden turn down the slopes of adversity; look to the hills. That chiseled bluff and its cohorts up and down the valley, give rise to a sense of perspective.