What makes Stinkin' Lincoln Stinkin' Lincoln?

These guys get me!

I am sure there are people out there that wonder why I am not exactly in love with living in Stinkin' Lincoln.  After all, it's a relatively nice place.  It's clean, there's a fairly low crime rate, you don't have to travel far to the Husker games and there is approximately one bar per capita along O Street alone.  So why the disdain for the state capital?  There are things that annoy me about this town, such as the traffic, the difference in the people, the Omaha haters and things like that, but those aren't great reasons to hate this place.  Really, I think when it boils right down to it, it's mostly the fact that it's not truly my home.  Omaha has always been and will always be home.  It's not because Omaha is such an awesome place that everything pales in comparison.  In all actuality it's the people.  It's my family and friends that I have been associated with for years and some for decades.  They are all people that understand me.

Here in Stinkin' Lincoln, I am a bit of an enigma.  Sometimes I will crack a joke and people won't even understand that I am joking, or I will make a statement and people will think I am joking.  Sometimes I will be very serious about a conversation or a task I am involved in and people will think I am cold and a bit of a jerk.  Or because I was at a meeting or something with someone and if I don't go seek that person out to glad hand with them before or after the meeting that person thinks I don't like them.  Or because I didn't answer my cell phone when they call, they think I am avoiding them.

I will say, I probably am a tough person to figure out.  For some reason though, in Omaha, people that have known me since I was knee high to a grasshopper, they get me. I can just be me and I don't have to be on guard all the time so I make sure I don't hurt someone's feelings or make them think I don't like them.  There really is nothing quite as wonderful as being able to just be ones self. 

It always amazes me how I will occasionally run into someone I knew before I left Omaha and we will have a conversation just like we had just seen each other the day before rather than there being 16 years in between our last conversation. 

I was reading a web article entitled, "The Top 5 Regrets People Have on Their Deathbed", and number 4 was, "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."  The great thing about the people I know from Omaha is that they make it very easy to stay in touch.  It's a rare occasion that someone you knew years ago treats you coldly or like you mean nothing to them now.  I am sure this is not exclusive to Omaha, but it's where I get to experience it, so it makes it special for me.  Therefore, wishing I had stayed in touch with my friends will most likely not be something I am regretting on my deathbed.  However, it's still fairly early in life.  I could still screw it up. 

After all things have been considered, I hope that Stinkin' Lincolnites will understand I don't really hate their beloved city.  I may poke fun at it from time to time, but I am sure that the Lincoln city planners really aren't Larry, Curly and Moe.  Really, it's just the fact that my real home is 55 miles to the Northeast.