The owner of the Shin-La Korean restaurant was shy about having her name used, but was happy to be photographed. She opened the restaurant 36 years ago, and is in the kitchen all day every day since. It is my favorite restaurant (and Maria’s) in Brattleboro, Vt., where we stayed last night to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary.

She wanted to know all about us. We wanted to know all about her.

Brattleboro, Vt. is an almost shockingly friendly and conversant place. If you stop in a restaurant to eat or into a shop to buy something, add five or ten minutes to chat. People want to know where you are from, what you are like. Talking to strangers is not considered an interruption to work in Brattleboro, it is the work.

The Shin-La owner loved my camera and told me about her husband’s photography habit. The desk clerk at the wondrously cozy and funky Latchis Hotel spent 15 minutes talking about the Weimaraner  in the lobby, and it wasn’t even hers. As we checked into the Latchis, Diane, the housekeeper on our floor, waved hello and said she remembered my camera well from the last trip. She stopped to ask how our year had been.

People hang out in coffee shops all over town, they can sit as long as they wish. Dogs go everywhere.

The owner of the Mystery  Book store downtown – one of the last in the country – rattled off the pub date of every famous mystery writer in the country and urged me to mind my step as I left the store. In all of our visits there, we have never seen anyone else in that shop.

In the vast used bookstore off a side street, the women behind the counter – she has worked there for nearly 40 years – tried to find a book I wanted rummaging through acres of used and new books piled to the ceiling, muttering a stream of consciousness rant about politics, social justice, her children, the sloppy nighttime employees and her love of social causes.

It took her awhile, but she found the book.

The owner of a used dress and bead store took his camera out from behind the counter and asked  me how he could change the depth of field. He told me the long and compelling story of his life as a business owner in downtown Brattleboro, the many customers who look at things only to take out their Iphones and search for a better price online. As I left the shop, he shook my hand and thanked me for talking to him about portrait-taking.

You don’t just walk into a shop in Brattleboro and buy something, that is considered rude. Commerce matters, but it is beside the point. I always get the feeling in Brattleboro that the individual is still more important than the corporation. I am greeted more politely and frequently on the streets of Brattleboro than for the rest of the  year anywhere else, even in my very friendly small town.

In a sense, Brattleboro is the town that chose not to change too much, perhaps one of the reasons Maria and I love it so much. There are no chain stores downtown, the corporate nation is held at bay, confined to nearby New Hampshire or malls far out of town.

Brattleboro has protected its small businesses and the individual of its citizens. Everyone on the streets is not rich and buff, like Manhattan or Brooklyn. Everyone is eager to tell you their story and hear yours.

You get the sense that people matter there, not just growth and money. There is a middle and working class in Brattleboro, and they can afford to live in town.

We had dinner there on our wedding night, and our one-night jaunts to Brattleboro have become a central part of our life. Brattleboro is full of sights that are becoming increasingly rare in America, especially in big cities, where the wealth build their lavish monuments and the residents are driven away by the rising costs of rents and homes.

Not only are there no chain stores in downtown Brattleboro, there are no million dollar condos either. People matter, the idea of individuality is precious. Maria and I feel completely at home there.

I shop for clothes once a year there,  in Sam’s massive outdoor store. I bought two pairs of jeans two blue workshirts, a belt and some underwear. When I couldn’t find the second pair of jeans, I didn’t go online, I asked a salesman – they give every shopper a free bag of popcorn there – and he dug out the pants that I wanted.

That’s it for me this year, I have all the clothes I need. I bought Maria a $15 dress off of a rack on the street, and she got me some prayer beads. Exhausted from  the Open House, two took long naps, long walks, found a lovely Turkish restaurant downtown and had lamb salads.

Brattleboro is the town that choose not to change, and I hope it never does. We had the nicest time there.