“Have a great day” – have a good day, have a really great day, have a real good day – is imbedded so deeply in our automatic response mode that it springs from the lips of the well-intended at all kinds of inappropriate moments.

Not long ago, for instance, I was pulled up to the new space-age-looking drive-through vacuum chute-to-teller at the Oxford Federal Credit Union. Perhaps you’ve noticed that privacy is not a feature of drive-through banking at the credit union or of any other financial institution’s outdoor service. There was no way I could avoid hearing the teller say to the customer at the “live” window, “Sorry, no funds available.” No intelligible reply from the customer. Then the teller said, “Anything else? No. Have a really great day!”

Think of it: you have just discovered that your account is overdrawn. What kind of a day are you likely to have? Great? I don’t think so.

“Have a good day” got into the national parlance at least 25 years ago, about the time the smiley face began appearing on restroom mirrors and at the bottom of office memos, no matter what the message. “Beginning January 1, the company’s share of employee health insurance premiums will be reduced by 50 percent …. (smiley face).”

Over time, good morphed into great, an effort, I suppose, to lift the message to new heights of muscular goodwill. What would be an over-the-top misuse of the great day admonition? I bet on American Airlines and, sure enough, my call for information about a flight to Ohio closed with “Have a good….”

Counting the ways I love living here. Love living here despite the warts and blemishes on the face of local government. Among the many wonderful aspects of living here, the kindness of the community stands out. One time or another most all of us will have benefited from that kindness.

Too, as a visitor to A Very Special Patient there for 12 days or so, I can say with some authority that the kindness abroad in the River Valley is epitomized in the care-giving community at Rumford Hospital.

Jane Bubar gave me a tour of the new emergency and reception facilities when they opened a few years ago. Impressive, for sure (set aside various shortcomings inside and controversy regarding the aesthetics of the exterior). I wrote a bit about the new hospital features in a Valley Voices column at that time.

The experience of the hospital is, of course, quite different if One You Love is a patient there. And how is that experience: warm and wonderful.

There are probably as many care-giving styles in the Rumford Hospital community as there are employees, about 300 Jane Bubar told me. Debbie, the rock lady of Peru, is blunt, chatty, and very kind. Brenda, who just returned from a visit with her daughter in Berlin (not N.H.), is quiet, sure, and very kind. Jackie, who lives close to the hospital and can walk to and from work, is patient, respectful, efficient, and very kind. Charlene, Andrea, Sue, Becky – a few among many others, were variously rigorous in their care, demanding of The Patient’s work to heal, cordial, informative, and all very kind.

In the early days of my husband’s stay in the hospital here, I was called to another hospital, this one in Boston, where one of our grandchildren was recovering from a frightening medical episode. I called the Rumford Hospital three or four times a day during my brief time away, and – just imagine! – unfailingly, no matter the hour or the shift, the RN on duty here inquired: “How is your grandchild?”

The staff of the Boston hospital in question, stationed at stand-up computer screens up and down every corridor, didn’t seem to know one another very well; nor did they know the doctors: “There are so many of them,” one young nurse opined. Big medical center hospitals are a lot like big business: impersonal. (That’s not all they are, but that will do for now.)

I will say that not one of the Big Time Boston staff urged me or anyone else to “have a great day.” Something in their favor.

It’s true, too, that in the Emergency Room of Rumford Hospital, when The Special Patient was being evaluated, one aide started to say, “Have a really good…” but stopped and said, “Oh gee. I’m sorry.”

Linda Farr Macgregor lives with her husband, Jim, in Rumford. She is a freelance writer. Contact her: [email protected]