My husband likes to ride his bike to work, even in the winter. This has been a source of contention between us for years. He wants the exercise, but I don’t want him to get frostbite (or hit by a car). That he always wears a helmet brings me only a small measure of comfort.

Most mornings, I walk downstairs to find him, helmet on head, tucking his pants into his socks. I offer to give him a ride, and he politely declines. I ask him to be careful, and he promises he will.

A few weeks ago, after the first real snow of the year, we went through our morning routine — helmet, socks, careful. Then I left the house before he did. What follows here is an account of his journey to work that day.

He strapped on his backpack and got his bike out, but he discovered that the snow was too slippery for riding. He tried to call me, but I didn’t answer. So, he put his bike away and started walking toward the university. It would take him about 40 minutes to get to his office.

When he got halfway down our street, a neighbor called out from her front porch.

“Good morning!”

My husband smiled. We’d just returned from a long trip to Sweden, and Swedish people aren’t terribly friendly. It’s not that they’re unfriendly — not rude, not mean — it’s just that they’re mostly silent. They don’t thank you if you open a door for them, for instance. They certainly don’t call out from porches.

So my husband, who was already glad to be back in the States, suddenly felt even gladder. He offered a greeting of his own, and he gave a little wave.

At the end of our street, he encountered another neighbor. This woman was shoveling her driveway. When she saw my husband, she stopped and leaned on her shovel. She asked, “How are you today?”

“Great!” my husband replied. He assumed she was inquiring because she hadn’t seen us since our Swedish trip. So he added, “I’m happy to be home!”

“Well, that is nice,” the neighbor said. “That’s really, really nice. Take care now.”

“Okay!” my husband said. He was aware that he was adding exclamation marks to everything he was saying, but he couldn’t help it. He was feeling really special.

He crossed over Stadium Boulevard and headed toward campus.

(That evening, he explained that a typical bike ride always leaves him with a grumpy attitude. The bike lanes are full of snow, maybe, or someone will club him with a car door. So, he said, this walk on this day was giving him a sense of hope.)

When a college-age guy shoveled some snow out of the way and warned him to “be so careful,” my husband decided, I am going to walk to work more often.

After a man he’d never met told him to have a good day, my husband began walking with (he admitted it later with his hand over his eyes) a jaunty bounce to his step.

The people in this town certainly are nice, he thought to himself.

After two or three more friendly greetings, he felt overwhelmed with love of home and country.

And when, as he was passing the law school, a stranger pulled her car to the curb and asked if he needed a ride, my husband made this mental note: America is awesome, and Ann Arbor is the most awesome city in it.

“No thanks!” he said to the stranger, again with the exclamation mark.

Then, from the law school to his office, he bounced and grinned and hummed the “Star Spangled Banner.”

As he was approaching his building, he glimpsed a reflection in the glass doors. Who the heck was that guy?

He glanced over both shoulders and realized he was the only person around. Then he stepped a little closer to the glass, and he understood what he was seeing.

It was a guy with his pants tucked into his socks, wearing a helmet on his head.

Unfortunately, the helmet in question is neither sleek nor sporty. He bought it in Sweden, and it’s rounder than a typical American helmet. More bulbous.

No, the helmet my husband wore on the 40-minute walk from our house to his office wasn’t the kind of helmet that said, I’ll be riding a bike very soon, and I’ll be going super fast.

What the helmet said was, I’m not very coordinated, and I like to wear a little extra protection, in case I fall down.

“You walked all that way wearing your bicycle helmet?” I asked, when he finished the story.

“I did,” he said. “And I was wearing a stocking cap underneath it.” Then he modeled the ensemble for us, and the kids collapsed in hysterical giggles.

“Well,” I said, “you were right about one thing.”

“Was I?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “The people in this town certainly are nice.”

Heather Heath Chapman lives in Ann Arbor with her husband and two children. You may reach her at heatherchapman1@me.com.