To the editor:

Nobody is more tickled than I am to be walking again to the Mass St. Dillons for a gallon of milk. Why, this is the biggest thing to actually happen to me, personally, since, well, since they tore the old Dillons down.

But Facebook isn’t my friend, and neither is Dillons, nor the woman I bought sweet corn from at the Farmers Market. And whatever the court says, businesses are not persons, whether they incorporate human purposes, such as greed or service, into their business model or not.

I will be paying for my share of the new Dillons — and if all goes according to its plan, a little bit more — at a penny a gallon of milk for the rest of my life.

So when I said “thank you” for the free hot dog at the neighborhood street party, it was not for the meat and the bun or your labor or the ingenuity of your bosses who organized the convenience of Dillons. That will all be paid for out of what you and everyone else have paid me in exchange for the goods and services I helped provide for you and everyone else.

That’s how we do things in America, and, frankly, in China. It can work if money cycles fairly through the system and doesn’t pool at the top.

The “thank you” is for your genuine smile. In our constant enterprise, we forget it’s our humanity we can share freely.