WHEN I STOPPED IN a nearby supermarket today to get a few things, I asked a clerk who was working in front of the frozen fish case, “Do you know where the flour tortillas are?”

He said yes, and got up from the floor where he was kneeling. I told him he didn’t need to take me there, he could just tell me where they were, but he was off and bounding — with a slight limp — toward aisle 11.

Normally I would know where things are, but I hardly ever go to that store because it’s a little out of the way.

“They’re right down there in the middle of the aisle,” he pointed, but then he followed me to the place.

“See there they are. You can also get taco shells here,” he showed me with obvious pride and enthusiasm, as if he was a tour guide in a museum. “And here is the taco mix and the shells in one box. And here are …”

I interrupted him: “Wow, you know a lot about the things in this store!”

He beamed. “Yes, I do.”

He had bushy eyebrows, a long thin face and the innocent aura of someone with a mental disability. He then told me the whole history of his supermarket career: 38 years altogether in this store and another one nearby. He started working when he was 19.

“That’s amazing! You’ve had an impressive career,” I said. “When are you going to retire?”

Without skipping a beat, he said, “When I’m 62.”

I said, “You’ll be really ready for a break then.”

“Yes, I will,” and he smiled in his crooked, child-like way.

“Hello!” he said to another customer who was passing by and whom he obviously knew.

“Well, good luck, and thanks,” I said.

“Sure,” he said as I was walking away. “And it’s people like you who make my day.”

I was really touched. And I wondered about him. I wondered how he would pass his days later after having spent so much of his life up and down the aisles of his supermarket universe. And I thought that the memory of his delightful simplicity and happy presence would probably linger here for many years.

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