I’m in my truck when I get a call from my great-nephew, Gus. He tells me he landed a job with a harvest crew. 
            “Where are you?” I ask.
            “Garden City.”
            I glance out the window. “Just three hours away.”
            “Long drive, ” he says.
            “Heck, that’s the nearest Wal-Mart,” I reply.  
             Gus is a Midwest farm boy and this job is his first venture out West. He  tells me that the crew shuts down around 6 PM. We decide to meet for supper at a place called Rib Crib.
            I hang up and wonder what Gus looks like now. In a family is as large as mine, it’s hard to keep up with successive generations. I know he is a hard worker and I've been told that his faith is as strong as his grip. I reflect on the tone of his voice: scuffed, like a work boot kicking a tire. 
             The radio plays a song about highways and horizons. I check the fuel gauge and turn south on Route 47. Three hours to Garden City? Hell, I’d drive two days just to buy that fellow a beer.
              There is something compelling about a young man testing his stride on new terrain. When I was Gus' age, I took a job working construction in Nebraska. I was far from home, falling in love and falling on my face. In a phrase: becoming a man.  Or so goes the myth. I discovered that the quest for manhood is far more perilous than advertised. In the end, I learned that being a man meant leaning on God like never before. 
            The miles pass and I imagine the scene at the restaurant: Gus and I will shake hands. I’ll order a beer. He’ll mention the width of combine headers and the number of men on the crew. We'll talk sports and politics.  
            But, tonight, Heart Cart might be a better name for that restaurant than Rib Crib. Because Gus and I won’t just exchange view points about point guards or current events. No. We'll move on to debate the nature of things like broad shoulders and strong backs. And deep chests. And the hearts that beat within them.