There are two kinds of people: those who hold the door open for you and those who do not.

Those who do, I’ve come to find, are polite people in general: they leave their server (if s/he was good) an 18-20 percent tip; smile and make eye contact when speaking to someone; shake your hand firmly; (attempt, at least to) remember your name.

Those who do not usually embody the reverse of all these things. More bluntly, they are rude.

I used to think that rudeness was a “college thing.”

Last year, for example, I was the Distribution Manager for the SUNY Fredonia newspaper The Leader (a fancy distinction for someone who delivers papers around campus and town). More often than not, students (and surprisingly some faculty) would not hold the door open for me (I had bundles of 50-pound newspapers dangling from each hand).

But since graduation – as I grow more acclimated to the “real world” outside the “academic bubble”/ the more I work in customer service or simply walk down the street – I realize that discourtesy is everywhere: people often do not hold the door open for their friend/partner let alone a stranger.

So…this all in mind…

I joined a gym last semester (not as a New Year’s weight loss resolution, but as a “I’m tired of being a cranky, stressed-out ‘something-or-other’ who is prone to migraines” resolution): Chautauqua Health & Fitness in the Dunkirk D&F Plaza.

Since most of my other attempts to feel better and smile more generally lead to more tension, I figured that encouraging the release of a healthy and natural chemical throughout my body – I think it’s called serotonin – might do the trick.

And I was right.

My routine hour of cardio and weightlifting three to five days per week gave me energy and made me feel healthier and happier all around.

It’s been three weeks since I canceled the membership (I’m leaving for France in a few days to visit family and wanted to save money). Now, more than ever, I realize that walking a few miles on a treadmill or doing bench presses was not the sole effect for my inclination to smile more.

It was the people who worked at the fitness center.

Back in the winter of 2007 (back when I was an Observer correspondent), I interviewed the husband and wife duo Mark and Kathy Jo Ellwood – the owners of Chautauqua Health & Fitness – as they were in the process of constructing Mark’s dreams (Mark had wanted to own a gym since he was 13).

In the Jan. 14 2007 Observer article “New fitness center coming to Dunkirk,” Mark explained that he and his wife both had formal schooling in health and physical education. Moving from Fredonia to Slippery Rock, Pa and back to Chautauqua County again, Mark has been a freelance coach for pole vaulting and ski racing, and has coached area athletes to world-ranked ones.  

 When they moved back to the area, he sold a family insurance business.

“I can make a difference in people’s lives,” he told me. “When I worked for someone else, that was taken away from me. Here, with this place, I get to help someone every day. I get to coach 24/7 and that is pretty cool.”

As we walked through his construction-in-process dream with loud machinery sounding in the background, Mark couldn’t stop smiling.

That smile is still in tact today.

From the first day I joined, the entire staff memorized my name (they remembered every member’s name) and welcomed me with a smile. If we passed each other, they wouldn’t look in another direction (as people tend to do when they sort of know someone but not well enough to strike up a conversation). They’d ask how my day was and whether anything new was happening.

(Whenever Mark was working, you’d hear his voice boom throughout the gym: “Hey Joe,” “How’s it going Mary,” “Hey Karen, how’re the kids”).

I didn’t know that my last workout was going to be my last. So, when Mark opened the door for me as I left, accompanied by his usual, “Bye Sarah. Have a nice day,” with a grin, I didn’t think much of it.

Now, in retrospect, it’s too bad that more businesses/ordinary people don’t hold the door open; don’t smile; don’t ask, “How’s it going?”

It really does make a difference in people’s lives.

Originally published Sunday, June 7, 2009