I was in City Center mall last night for the opening of “Man of La Mancha” at the White Plains Performing Arts Center, and I got there early. After blowing a bundle at Circuit City — holy economic impact of the arts, Batman — I went into the 15-screen Cinema De Lux to use the facilities and I saw a man who looked an awful lot like Ron Howard.

He and a woman who might’ve been his wife and another couple were staring at a movie poster for “The Other Boleyn Girl” — starring Natalie Portman, Eric Bana and Scarlett Johansson — and were wondering who the poster was meant to appeal to, or who would see a movie based on the poster. “Is it for young women?â€? they wondered aloud.

It turns out Howard was at the movie theater to screen “Frost/Nixon,” so he was milling about before going into the screening.

Later, I passed by Howard with a cluster of folks and I did what I rarely ever do: I approached him. We had met for a second when he was filming “The Paper” at The Journal News and he had impressed me as a really nice guy.

(A former boss of mine — the wonderful Peter G. Johnson — was a huge Mayberry fan. I asked Howard if he would sit at Pete’s desk—just to give the guy the thrill of knowing that Opie sat at his desk — and Howard graciously complied.)

Anyway, last night, just as I summoned the courage to approach, I am walking up to shake his hand and he says to an assistant: “Is Peter Kramer coming tonight?”

I said “I’m Peter Kramer.”

He shook my hand but, I suspect, didn’t really believe me. (I think he was talking about the photographer Peter Kramer or maybe the Peter Kramer who wrote the book “Listening to Prozac.” I’ll never know.)

So here is my question: Why do things like that happen? Why, at that instant, did Ron Howard say “Is Peter Kramer coming?”

An editor of mine, the tardy Mitch Broder, says he’s been compiling of list of such synchronicities and can only conclude that they are a way of proving that we are in the right place.

Still, it’s gotta make you wonder….