Knowing Folks

One of my favorite things about living in Woodstock is the people. It's a friendly place, and a place full of friends.

Tonight I decided to grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks. As I walked in I noticed the manager, Tanya, sweating the arrival of a huge new three-door refrigerator. So I talked with her for a bit and asked about the changes at the store. She runs a great shop where the people (and their drinks) are well known among the baristas. As a matter of fact, as I talked with Tanya about the new refrigerator, Kim (one of my favorite baristas) had my drink made before I even asked. How cool is that?

So I paid and headed to a table and noticed my friend Don perusing a Sun-Times. We had a 15 minute conversation on politics, TV news, the President, Iraq, terrorism, the next election, and good books among other things. Don spends a lot of time reading in Starbucks and is always well versed on a number of interesting current events and issues. Makes for great conversation, and a better friendship.

After finishing our discussion I moved to an outside table to enjoy my drink and read a little in a beautiful and rare cool July evening. I grabbed my Wired magazine and flipped through the pages a bit before seeing my Albanian friend Arben. Arben and I have been talking World Cup soccer lately, so we spent some time discussing the championship game played on Sunday. Then we talked about our different faiths (Christianity and Islam) which led to a discussion on a couple of hot news items. As we talked another Albanian friend showed up, Valder. The three of us talked until 9pm when I had to head home.

Tonight I figured I'd spend an hour or two reading over coffee, but instead I spent a couple of hours catching up with friends and sharing life together. It's helpful for me to remember that the beauty of the evenings of my life are not just beautiful because of the weather, but because of the company I'm blessed to keep.

In other words, I don't just love Woodstock. I love the people of Woodstock.