Home is where the heart is, and though Steve Udelhoven roams thousands of miles from here, his heart is back at the family’s Wisconsin homestead – so much so he built a house on the property and drives for a company based less than an hour away.

Steve Udelhoven is winning.

The cards are falling for him now. Money slides across the table. A nickel. A quarter. Two dimes. Four players and a dollar and change in the pot. This game of Dirty Spades is getting interesting. The friendly chatter at, and around, the corner table – the only table – in the Family Depot in Mount Hope, Wis., population 183, turns to a brief moment of silence as the cards are laid down.

On most Friday and Saturday mornings, after almost a week on the road, Udelhoven is here at this general store with friends and, on Saturday, his children – Vicky, 16; Andy, 16; and Joe, 14 – meeting and greeting everyone who comes into the small country town’s morning meeting place. He’s known most of them all his life.

“The rules of the game get changed a lot,” says the easy-going Udelhoven, breaking the silence. “It’s hard to lose more than $5. But I’ve done it.”

Then the game is over. Today everyone either won a little or lost a little, and Udelhoven has farm business to attend to and kin to visit.