I've never met anyone of consequence at Subway. And I've eaten more meatball marinaras than I care to admit. But there is something about life on a bike that shakes one's sense of routine. Broaching the silence with the grey bearded patron seated opposite me one table away was hardly even a forethought.
"Did you win?"
He had been laughing to himself as he played what I assumed was a video game on his ipad. It seemed strange that a guy that looked late sixty would be playing games--late afternoon--at a Subway. And somewhere in the monkey chatter of thoughts that will cross a mind in a day, someone was broadcasting, 'What a looser!'.
"Yes. I did. I gamble online. Its great fun."
He laughed again, like a kid in an arcade.
Then surmising my indifference he paused and added, "Oh, not real gambling. It's just for fun."
"I won nearly $300,000 before losing it all."
He was positively radiant about this. He had a smile full of holes that nearly pushed his ears off the side of his head. I started laughing despite myself.
I've always been interested in human stories of all kinds and thought even if this one begs drama and inspiration, maybe the man has his reasons for loitering at Subway for hours while he wins and looses fake money.
"You come to Subway often?" I persisted.
He paused again. He had very clear eyes.
"Oh, I come here occasionally. When I need to escape from my solitude. I woke up this morning feeling less than great. But then I walked outside. The ground was wet. The sun was out so I decided to walk. The air here is clean. So I decided that today has a lot to offer. I ended up here and won and lost $300,000! And now I'm talking to you! I can't see what's not to like about today."
Dave Lehrner was a first rate philosopher! Also a dentist and a Jew. He had read the Book of Mormon 3 times cover to cover and cracked jokes about how pathetically sorry he was for Korihor--the outcast trampled rationalist. He thought that was wildly funny too. So did I.
"I'm riding my bike to Utah." I volunteered at some point. "We'll actually I'm thinking of calling it quits in Pittsburg. It's been harder than I thought it would be."
"Well you said you spent time in Asia, so you know some things about surrender right? It's the wu wei! You do realize that you don't HAVE to finish right? If you finish early, that's positively alright. Maybe even a good thing."
"Yeah, I just hate to finish early. I've been wanting to do this for while."
"There's value in that too! You could go another ten. That might not be remarkable but 10 is 10. You could go to Pittsburg and be done. That would be remarkable! It's a long ride. You could ride all the way to Utah. Let me write something down for you."
He scribbled something on a square slip of paper and then humored himself by drawing a tooth with a smily face in the middle. He accented the tooth with shining marks and left his name and email as well.
He handed me the slip and I read, "Persistence Furthers". It was so simple. Almost non-sense. But to me, the riding weary traveler, it was good medicine. I kept that slip of paper tucked behind the seat of my bike for the next 1600 miles. Many 10 mile segments passed. Thoughtless hours with the occasional passing of a farm truck and the clicks and chirps of field bugs. Inevitably, out of the silence, like the slightest tail wind would whisper, "persistence furthers."
