Back in the mists of time when I was young, “Reader’s Digest” was ubiquitous. If you didn’t subscribe, it got passed on to you. If you went to doctor or dentist or hairdresser, it was what you read. One of its most popular features was called “My Most Unforgettable Character.”

I don’t know if the magazine still exists, but I certainly have a nominee for most unforgettable character, my friend Mike. I met him the first day I walked across campus at graduate school. He called me by name, knew me by sight and stuck up a conversation. I never did learn how he did that trick,

I soon learned however that it was a typical manifestation of his astonishing ability to know everyone in a room (or possibly an arena) ten minutes after entering it. I would leave the same place after four hours having met no one. He is our version of the little friend to all the world.

I’ve known him now for 44 years and see him only infrequently because of his busy schedule. We talk about what we’re reading, sometimes play word games or just tell tales and laugh. If the idea of an Irish gift of gab wasn’t already a cliche, they’d have to invent it to account for him. He also makes one almost believe in leprechauns.

In his graduate school days Mike thought he wanted to write, but this never bore fruit. I think because he likes to hang around with people too much to sit alone for long staring at a blank piece of paper. Writers tend to be introverts. That isn’t Mike’s problem.

He’s the life of any party. In fact, when he shows up at otherwise staid congregations they immediately turn into parties. He’s also what Malcolm Gladwell, in “The Tipping Point,” called a connector, the kind of guy who spreads an idea far and wide because he knows many, many people from very diverse backgrounds and vocations.

For years Mike worked for the circulation department of a daily paper and occasionally he’d be expected to ring doorbells in a given neighborhood and try to sign up new subscribers. I don’t know how successful he was in this endeavor, but I do know that he was likely to linger anyplace where the door was answered.

Soon he’d be learning where the residents were born, what they did for a living, what their kids were up to, what they were reading, what they thought of their neighbors. He may have forgotten in the process of making a friend that he was supposed to be selling something, but the people he met never forgot him.

As a consequence of his genuine love of and interest in people, to walk down a street with Mike is an experience. You stop every few steps as he exchanges greetings and news with people he knows — college professors, little old ladies, homeless people, aging hippies, businessmen, shopkeepers, cops. He remembers everyone. A few may not remember him, but most adore him.

Mike grew up in Minnesota, but he has never left the small southern city where we met in graduate school. He’s become its unofficial mayor or chief booster. Not only does he know everyone, he attends local theater, street fairs, art exhibits, lectures, community and cultural events. If a crowd is gathering, he’s in it. If something is about to happen, he’‘ll encourage you to attend it.

Mayor Mike is only one of the hats he wears. I also think of him as St. Mike. As a believing Catholic he would surely dislike this notion, but he is the most generous person I know. The priesthood missed a bet when it failed to recruit him. He belongs in “Going My Way,” where he’d probably be Bing’s cheery sidekick, father Timmy O’Dowd played by Frank McHugh.

He practices daily what many others only preach. Far from wealthy, he contributes to charities and his church constantly. I know he volunteers several days a week for programs to feed the needy, to help house homeless veterans. I’m sure there are innumerable other kindnesses he does because it is both in his nature and is enjoined by his faith.

Mike is a thoroughly lovable person, probably because he loves his fellow man. A rare feat. You can’t help but warm to him, despite his somewhat arbitrary relationship to timekeeping, the fact that a phone call is likely to reach an answering machine that reports it is full up with messages so can’t record yours, and his refusal to get email. He once told me he was afraid to get on the Internet because if he could access Amazon, he might buy too many books.

He might balk at being called St. Mike or Mayor Mike, but I think he might like another comparison that springs to mind when I think about him. Like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Mike is probably the richest man in town. And knowing him enriches the rest of us, even though we are closer to the crabby, miserly Mr. Potter.