IT BEGAN with a stop at Milford Mill station.

There, a young woman in a business suit - a stranger - passed by and said hello and wished me a good morning. Nothing astonishing. But then there were the three schoolgirls I passed on the sidewalk near my house who said a lovely hello to me. Again, strangers.

On Calvert Street, someone I had never met saw me walking past and asked, "How are you doing today? Yo, it's such a nice day out. It feels like springtime. Don't you think?"

Has that ever happened to you? Not me. At least, not that I can remember. And I'm a Canadian living in Baltimore. I find all of this rather unusual, despite having lived in what people perceive to be the "polite" country, Canada.

Then why is this Canadian surprised at niceness? I've moved from Toronto, a bustling metropolis, to a more laid-back place, it seems, where, in the past few weeks, strangers have offered random acts of kindness.

Are people nicer because of recent tragedies? In light of them all - snipers, arson, drugs, terrorism, armed robberies - are people consciously trying to make this a nicer place to live?

I was grabbing a cappuccino in Mount Vernon the other day when the woman behind the counter asked my opinion about how to respond to her 3-year-old's temper tantrums. I realized she was just making conversation. But this went beyond the standard margins of perfunctory nods and smiles. All this in just six weeks.

I felt as if I had been walking around in some surreal phony Truman Show-esque made-for-TV happy town. Maybe I've become jaded and cynical. I began to think my faith in humanity was worn out when extended pleasantries became suspect.

I've been hearing a lot of "good morning" and "how are you." A lot of smiles on the street.

And that's not to suggest that I haven't seen rude people. I'm not naively walking the streets with some inane grin, oblivious to the world's ills, humming Burt Bacharach's "What the World Needs Now Is Love." I'm not sure whether this citywide feel-goodism is coincident with the recent "Believe" campaign, either. It requires more pro-activity to be considerate than it does to be indifferent. Maybe it's something in the water.

Or it could be something in the air. I kind of like it when strangers say hello. And I've decided to pass it on. I think a kind word to a stranger sets a collective mood in motion.

You've probably seen someone grumpy speak grumpily to someone else and, like a virus, that grumpiness spread unconsciously to other people. Moods are contagious. This reaction causes people to put up their guard, and what ensues is a negative chain reaction.

It works with a friendly hello, too.

I've gotten past the weirdness of being kind to strangers, realizing instead that people quickly get accustomed to a series of quiet, robotic, insulated, often overly self-protective everyday interactions. Your mom told you not to talk to strangers, but why not? Because of mistrust. Sure, there's a lot of creepy people. So you avoid those kinds.

Is there such a thing as a nice city? Maybe there's an inherent people charm in "Charm City." Maybe someone started somewhere with a small smile and it snowballed.

Today's writer

Dave Gordon, a free-lance writer from Toronto, is an intern at The Sun.

City Diary provides a forum for examining issues and events in Baltimore's neighborhoods and welcomes contributions from readers.