EVERYDAY EXAMPLES OF CAREER SATISFACTION

Career Satisfaction and the Death of a Wise Man

A few years ago our neighbor from across the street died at the age of 86, after a long life of satisfying work. His name was Logan Coombs. Our family lived across the street from him and his wife, Betty, for nineteen years.

One thing I admired about Logan was that, unlike many people, he chose a line of work and stayed with it his entire working life---because he loved it. He found fulfillment in his employment. He was an aircraft mechanic at Northwest Airlines. Many years ago, I asked him how did he choose his work. Unlike today's kids who might be directed to a certain line of work after taking numerous skills, interest assessment, and vocation tests guided by a high school or college counselor, he told me, "I knew when I was ten years old, back in Indiana during the Great Depression, I wanted to work with airplanes." Money or prestige were not the issue for him. Following his bliss, as the late author Joseph Campbell advised us all, Logan found contentment, a good living, and the respect of his peers. Even in his retirement, Logan worked with airplanes. He combined his photography hobby with his love of aircraft. Over the years he assembled a tremendous portfolio of airplane photographs.

At first blush, one might falsely conclude Logan was a bit of a curmudgeon. Logan held very clear cut opinions about the world and its decline since he was a young veteran of World War II. I agreed with many of his opinions; disagreed with some. Some people these days would have scoffed at his opinions because they were not "nuanced" or "politically correct" opinions. I admired Logan for his freedom of thought. He was not chained down by the current ill-defined and always mercurial totalitarian new-speak of the our media age.

Logan Coombs was a man with virtues and with faults. Among his virtues, he had wisdom.

I will miss him. Judging from the turn-out at his funeral, many others will miss him, also.