Social center of the world? The public library!

I live within walking distance of a public library, and I am often on waiting lists for movies or books, and so I pop over there to pick things up or return them.  Usually, I’m at the library no more than a couple of minutes.  But, I can’t even tell you how often I run into someone I know in those couple of minutes!  I have seen former students, former teaching colleagues, people from church, people from the dance class.  Today, I took a quick break from schoolwork to return a DVD (”Miracle” — it’s good), and I ran into my old hematologist!  It makes me wonder how many people I know go there in a day!  I can often walk around the local shopping mall for an hour or more and never see anyone I know — and in fact, I often wonder who all these people are that I don’t know!  But that little library seems to be a magnet for friendly faces.