Tonight after class I headed to work by cutting through the university  libraries, avoiding the rain.  As I walked down the marble stairs at the graduate library my hand slid along the wooden railing.  It was smooth to the touch.  I thought about all the hundreds of hands that had slid down that railing before me.  It was a connection with the past, something we had talked about in the archival lecture I had just left.  It left a warm feeling.

I washed my hands when I got to work.  After all, hundreds of hands in flu season…well…lets just say the warm feelilng needed to be washed off.