This Monday, 8 April, 2013 I traveled to Surrancy, Ga to meet my good friend Dick Ward and to give him some company on the last half of his trip to Aiken.
We stopped at the Georgia welcome center on Hwy 301 for me to make a phone call. Before I made the call I noticed a slightly past middle aged man sitting on recumbent bicycle resting in the shade of the portico of the Welcome Center. He had a friendly face and welcoming smile.
I told Dick I had to go talk to this guy. For those of you read this blog, you may be familiar with my concept of "Historical Strings of Experience". Well, I felt one of these coming on and I was, this time, prescient for my new acquaintance, Jeffery Heller, was a soul mate with the gift of gab.
Jeff is a New York City liberal who has a heart of gold and a mild mannered way of expressing his ideas. He told us he was a part time nurse and a part time lawyer who's main interest in life seems to be the legal support of those immigrants requesting asylum in this country. Jeff and I differ in major ways on most political subjects of the day but he and Dick and I were able, through, civil discourse, to find small areas of agreement on some things that could lead to compromises.
All three of us agreed that our discourse was one that would probably never occur in the halls of Congress or in the comment sections of the New York Times or the Washington Post.
Meeting Jeff was, at once, a new experience to talk to a long distance bicycle rider and consult with an informed citizen with ideas about how this Nation could be better.
We could use millions with the character, devotion and dedication possessed by Jeff
