Newsletter 107: Coal Mining, and Dream Jobs

I’ve decided to start putting some of the best newsletter essays here on Medium, so more people can read them. You’re still better off just subscribing. This one is from May 2018, about finding your dream job, wherever and whatever it is.

There’s a fantastic podcast by my old Daily Illini colleague Kelly McEvers, co-host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” called “Embedded.” It has covered several topics over the last few years, from the opioid crisis to the history of Donald Trump’s business practices to this season’s topic, the coal industry in rural Virginia. The show is inquisitive and open-hearted and ultimately pretty devastating as it looks at an area of the country, and an industry, that is falling apart for reasons that are absolutely not their fault but are made worse by their inability to accept the reality of the planet as we currently live in it. There was a time that being a coal miner was a honorable, stable job that you could comfortably raise a family doing; my great uncle Lotsi worked in a mine in Moweaqua, Illinois, most of his life. But that time is gone. That’s a sad fact. But that it’s sad doesn’t make it any less true.