A lot of my ancestors on my mom's side are from Nebraska, and in Omaha I finally met my great uncle and aunt, Stephen and Jacquelyn Pondelis. They are 87 and 82 and have lived their whole lives here, raising four children and staying active in the Catholic church.

Steve worked 41 years for Omaha-based Union Pacific, one of the largest railroad franchises.
He and Jackie met as teenagers roller skating, but didn't start seeing each other until Steve got back from World War II. He was drafted into the U.S. Army and served "three years, two months, six days, one hour and 10 minutes," including 13 months on the ground in the Aleutian Islands.

Though their children and extended family have all moved away, they have chosen to stay.
They drove me around the city and told me lots of interesting things about the schools and neighborhoods.
There is subdivision built in 1958, for example, where each house has a one-car garage.
Steve recalls returning from the war after telling his mother to sell his car, only to find there were long waiting lists to get a new vehicle.

Some of the houses built in the past decade have triple car garages.
I love how even domestic architecture is a history lesson.

I also learned that Jackie's dad (my great grandfather) used to grow and sell horseradish, which may partly explain why I love the stuff.

She showed me a couple places investor Warren Buffett likes to eat, including this buffet:

Just imagine him and Bill Gates getting together to play bridge and you've got a nice little image of Omaha. The city was historically known for its railways, livestock processing plants, cornfields and other agriculture. Today the greater Omaha area is home to 838,000 residents and a small handful of fortune 500 companies.

The wonderful thing about Steve and Jackie is that they still have each other and are still in love.
She
makes him lunch every day. They have "ice cream nights" twice a week.
Steve fixes things around the house and is pretty punctual for his 10
a.m. coffee breaks.

It's been nice for me to be a part of the
normalcy while the Ford guys hack away at my RV, attempting to fix some
safety recalls.

Plus they love my crazy little pit bull. What more could you ask for?