Lean on the Gas

I rolled into the driveway at 11:15 last night.

The last few days had been a blur of good miles: visiting my daughter and her family in southeast Nebraska, the Midwest Animal Science meetings in Omaha, then over to Ames for the Niman Ranch Annual Meeting. By the time I pointed the car east on Wednesday afternoon, I knew it was going to be a long night. The GPS said midnight. I knew I could do better.

When I finally crossed into Indiana, I turned off the toll road and switched my Spotify to George Strait — a small nod to a man whose music has been present in my life since I started listening to country music on WBTU back in the 1980s. And somewhere around Warsaw, Run came on.

The whole song is pretty simple, really — Ford or Chevy, walk or run, just get home. And when that line hit — lean on the gas and off the clutch — twenty-eight years of late nights settled right down on my shoulders.

I've crossed the Midwest more times than I can count. Passing through Fort Dodge to end up in Sioux Center. O'Hare, which nobody enjoys. Interstate 70 across Southern Illinois and Missouri. Feed mills and dealer offices and pig barns. Weather changes every Midwesterner expects yet despises. I did all of it gladly. But every single trip ended the same way.

I came home.

I probably should have found a place to bunk up more than once over the years. But I didn't. Because I wasn't just heading home. I was heading to her. There's a woman waiting at the end of that driveway who has been my teenage dream since before I had any business dreaming that big.

The GPS said midnight. I pulled in at 11:15.

George said run.

Run I did.