As we continue to explore the obscure meanings behind each letter in the acronym VASHON, we come now to the “H.”

For a while there, I was certain that letter stood for “Hippie.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t know of any place, outside of Germany perhaps, that has as many ancient VW buses on the road (not to mention Beetles) as this odd little island. They are all substantially older than my own grown and married son, and they’re still running! And where else in America are you still likely to see people strolling around in tie-dyed shirts, skirts and bandanas? It is as if, when you take that ferry from Fauntleroy, you slip through a crack in the time/space continuum and enter another era altogether.

It is a gentler era and one driven not so much by the influence of certain stupor-producing hallucinogenic herbs as perhaps in the past, as by what appears to be a conscious collective decision to live lightly on the land and to be kind toward others.

And that’s when it hit me: The “H” stands for “Helpful.”

I confess this revelation came to me slowly (like so much else these days). This is, I suspect, largely because I come from New York, where the kind of help you are most likely to get is the kind that helps relieve you of your wallet on the subway.

I was a Boy Scout, briefly, in my youth. I can’t say that much of that experience stuck, apart from a preference for khaki, but I do remember that the third item in the Boy Scout Law is that a scout is helpful. I also remember looking around my run-down neighborhood and thinking, “Oh sure, like I’m ever gonna offer to help someone cross the road. Great way to get yourself knifed!” Where I come from, self-preservation trumps helpfulness.

So when I moved to this benighted island in the stream, I was suspicious of how helpful people are here. I think it’s unnatural, actually. I keep thinking, is this something that comes in the water supply? Like arsenic? Or has the arsenic simply addled the brains of everyone who’s been here a few years, the way, say, lead will slowly drive you mad? Whatever it is, I call it unnatural.

For example, the other day I’m standing quietly in the middle of the meat department of the Thriftway, my eyes glassy with distraction. I’m trying to visualize what’s already in the fridge at home so I can decide what I might make for dinner for the woman lately known as my wife. Am I left to my own quiet musings? Of course not. Lori from the fish department looks over her counter, one quizzical eyebrow lifted above her dazzling sapphire blue eyes, and says, not quietly mind you, “You OK there, Will?” She’s trying to be helpful, of course, but now every other shopper in the department is watching me as if I might have a fit of some kind any moment now. I slink out and settle on pasta.

See, where I come from, you walk into a store and you are completely ignored, which I figure is as it should be. Nobody invited me in there in the first place, you know? I’m an interloper. Why should I feel welcome? Loiter a few moments and the owner’s bound to yell from behind his copy of the New York Post, “Don’t think you can get away with anything, pal; I got cameras everywhere!” And I’m OK with that, see? Normal.

So Vashon came as something of a shock. I mean, can I just point out this is a place where otherwise apparently normal adults stand in the middle of the main intersection dressed as elves? Collecting money? We had those people in my old neighborhood, and while they didn’t wear costumes, at least they washed your windshield before they took your money!

The elves, of course, are trying to help the Island’s food bank. And everyone who stops his or her car at the stop sign (which they always do here, unlike those of us who still prefer the far more efficient rolling “New York Stop”), well, they want to help, too, don’t they? Very sweet, I’m sure, but it makes for a heck of a traffic jam. And then there’s Granny’s Attic helping out the medical center, and VIPP helping out sick or abandoned pets, and the Senior Center helping seniors, and the housing service helping those who need affordable housing, and the youth and family services people helping folks who need counseling, and the Land Trust helping out … well…the land, for goodness sakes!

I mean, really. People are so helpful and thoughtful and good on this island I think they should give out insulin shots on the ferry so you don’t go into shock from all the sweetness.

Me, I like my long dead father’s line: “I’d like to help you out,” he’d say, sincerely. “Which way did you come in?”

As the new year begins, this columnist hopes you will be as helpful as you can to those in need on our magical island.

— Will North is a Vashon novelist. He will shortly be leaving for Cornwall, England, to interview witches for a new book.