Career counseling

I didn't grow up wanting to be a newspaper editor. I didn't study journalism in college. I never worked on a school newspaper in high school or college. I got into this business, I used to say, because I enjoy writing and because I was looking for a job where I didn't have to wear a tie to work.
Taking that kind of path into newspapers makes me wonder once in a while if I made the right choice. If I'm on the right career path.
Mostly I wonder after we've written something someone disagrees with and people call and yell at me.
Whatever the cause, though, it's nice in those moments of uncertainty to know there are jobs out there for which I am even less well suited than I am for this one.
Those kinds of reminders don't come with any kind of regularity, and when I come across them it is often in the course of doing my job.
Several years ago, for example, the publicity crew from the Red Barron pizza company was in the area and invited me to go for a ride with a member of their biplane stunt-flying team. I accepted, expecting to have a chance to take some great aerial photos of the Farmington area. I never got the photos, but the experience taught me I would never have made it as a World War I-era fighter pilot. It's not that I'm afraid to fly. I just think it would have been hard to dogfight and throw up all over myself at the same time.
At any rate, it was one potential career path off the list.
Around the same time, I explored the possibility of becoming a professional bicycle racer by sending letters to the heads of the United States Cycling Federation and the United States Olympic Committee. I asked them if I could ride for the USA in the Athens Olympics. I even promised to bring my own bike, one of those old fashioned deals with the big wheel in the front. In the spirit of the Athens games I offered to ride in a toga.
No deal. All I got for my effort was a hat and a couple of pins. On the bright side, I can use those to convince people I actually did ride in Athens. In a way, that's even better. I get all the glory without having to do any of the actual work. It's as close as I'll ever get to knowing what life is like for Paris Hilton.
I haven't officially ruled out the possibility of becoming a world famous male model, but so far responses from potential agents have not been promising. I assume this is because the bike-shorts-and-toga look I've used in my promotional photos is simply too far ahead of its time.
The latest item on my this-career-is-not-for-you checklist is actually a return to the world of antiquated air combat. Over the weekend three World War II-era bombers visited Holman Field in St. Paul. Because my grandfather flew one of the models on display during the war several members of my family went to visit. My grandfather came dressed in his old flight suit, which earned him free admission. I'm not sure if it was a matter of respecting a veteran or of humoring a guy who was actually willing to walk around in public wearing a World War II flight suit.
Whatever the case, I had an opportunity to make my way through two of the three planes on display. And the planes, while presumably a good size by World War II standards, clearly were not built with ideas of accommodating someone who stands somewhere in the area of six foot six. Ceilings were low. Walkways were roughly the width of Twizzlers. Making my way from one end of a plane to the other required acts of contortion that would tax a contortionist (another career path off the list!). Were I required to move around one of those planes in any kind of hurry there is a very good chance I would either fall out a window or wedge myself so securely into a crawlspace I would still be there today.
I'm not too disappointed, though. I'm not sure I'd want to be a World War II-era bomber crewmember anyway. I'm not even sure what you'd have to major in to get into something like that.