Last week I had to go to Greenfield for a couple quick errands on Wednesday. I wanted to share a couple things from that day.

First of all, and I’ve known this for a long time but tend to forget it except when I need to visit the hospital for any reason —– a hidden treasure in this area is the gift shop at the Bay State Franklin Medical Center. It’s not a huge boutique or store, but has a great selection of items suitable for gifts – to others as well as to yourself! Whenever I need to go to the Franklin, I allow enough time to visit the gift shop to see what new or different items they have — and always end up buying something! The gift shop profits provide for extra patient comforts and services at the hospital, thus is a great little store to patronize!

Next, with Thanksgiving being the next day, I dreaded going into the grocery store for the few things we had forgotten. What I experienced in the store was truly a surprise. As crowded as the store was (“It’s a zoo in there” a woman who was on her way out when I was going in said to me) and yet everyone I noticed was in a good mood. In the lines at the check-out counters, everyone was visiting and laughing over things and wishing each other a Happy Thanksgiving. Waiting my turn at the deli counter, people — strangers to each other — were chatting and visiting like everyone knew each other, and again, wishing each other a Happy Thanksgiving as groceries were paid for and they left the store. When I left the store I did not feel frazzled or irritated which tends to be the case when any store is crowded and shopping takes a longer time to accomplish than usual. I had the distinct thought that this was the first year in a long time I have noticed so many people chatting, laughing and waiting their turns on a busy pre-holiday shopping excursion.

I don’t know what caused this difference from past years, yet I couldn’t help but think how wonderful it would be if we were all this nice with each other all the time. Imagine how much more pleasant every day life could be!

Vicky Lynde

Colrain