I’ve heard the argument that legalized gambling preys on the poor. I think there’s a lot of truth to that.

But then I read this article on Gangrey about “the riders” by Cassi Feldman of the New York Times, and I discovered that, occasionally, it’s the other way around.

The most dedicated riders virtually live on the bus, making two round trips a day. They leave early in the morning from an informal bus depot at Division Street and the Bowery, spend a few hours at the casino, then return in the late afternoon. As night falls, they are back on the corner, ready for their next journey. For some riders, the routine brings with it a sense of shame. “This is the bottom of the barrel,” said one scrawny young man who was hunched against a chain-link fence as he waited for a bus. “There’s not much further to sink.”

Yet in the eyes of some who are familiar with the city’s homeless population, this tactic shows creativity and resilience. Apart from providing the material benefits of an escape from the elements and a place to sleep, the daily excursions let the riders avoid the stigma of being homeless.

“They’re making it on their own without putting their hand out,” said Kim Hopper, a professor of sociomedical sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who has studied homelessness in New York since the late 1970s. “This is not charity. This is ingenuity.”

I would’ve liked to try my hand at some immersion reporting like this, riding buses to Atlantic City with ex-con street people. I wonder how I would gain the trust of my sources… when I should pry out the details… and when to leave well enough alone.

The idea of Maurice Cherry’s daily routine disturbs me. Ten hours on a bus or in a casino lobby each day. Five hundred miles of pavement. All in one continuous loop. All that travel… and at the end of the trip… you haven’t gone anywhere.

Then I think, like David Wilcox says, maybe I’m being bugged for metaphorical reasons. Maybe Maurice’s trip reminds me a lot of my life now… or what the future holds when my job reconvenes in a few weeks. Miles traveled and hours spent and the same thing over again. Am I getting anywhere? It’s just so hard to measure when you feel like you’re inching along on a journey of 1,000 miles.

Even more so, when it seems like you’re just spinning your wheels… or driving in circles.