I had, depending on your viewpoint, the good or the bad luck of being raised in something of a religious vacuum.

For one summer, I went with my neighbor to the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Later, my family belonged for about a year to a United Methodist Church, whose new minister greatly appealed to young people. He was a compelling and intense speaker, with a fresh, contemporary take on Christianity.

Let me tell you the story of the DVD gang.

A family -- a man, a woman, a child, and another man -showed up at one
of our branch libraries. They presented Denver identification. Under our
Colorado Library Card program, that was enough to get them all library
cards with us.

They then proceeded to check out about 20 DVD's apiece.

A couple of days later, they showed up at another of our branches. Using
their new cards, they repeated the performance.

On November 6, 2002, the Douglas Public Library District conducted two "non-user" focus groups. These were for people who did not have library cards; nor did anyone else in their households.

One focus group consisted of adult men and women from around the county. The second group consisted of young adults.

Some people have open faces. Others have closed.

It's the sort of thing you don't even notice until you have kids. You feel it for the first time right there in the birthing room, when all of a sudden you smile the way you probably haven't smiled in decades.

When they're infants, you see all the untrained grimaces and toothless grins. When babies are unhappy, their faces screw up and they wail. When they're happy, it's ear to ear and top of the head to the toes.