Whenever we publish the newest People at Work story (like last night’s look at an insurance-broker-slash-hot-air-balloon-pilot), I love to look back to remember whom we featured in past years in that month.
For last August’s installment, photographer Sam Hodgson and I went to summer camp outside of Julian, following counselor Chelsea Hepner around while she taught kids a game of open-handed dodgeball and coordinated a dramatic rendition of pirates on a ship.
Two years ago, we met Elmer Geissler, a funeral director at Featheringill Mortuary in the College Area. Geissler and his daughter attended our recent event celebrating the folks we’ve featured in this series and it was a treat to see him again. He told me that night he thinks he’s the oldest guy still directing funerals from here to north of L.A.
(In a couple of technology switches, we’ve ended up with some holes in the videos and slideshow components we included in many of these past stories — that’s why you might see a “Video Not Found” message. I’m sorry about that, and we’ll work on getting those back in there — thanks to those of you who’ve dropped me a line to point out the holes. In the meantime, the stories are still there.)
This month’s story came about because of a brainwave I caught after seeing the hot air balloons flying over North County for years and thinking one day: Somebody drives those. And as we all know now, one of those somebodies is Pete Brunner.
Is there a job in San Diego that intrigues you like that? Someone whom you think might provide an offbeat day-in-the-life? Or some other interesting or vital position that someone fills? If you’ve ever got ideas for future installments of our People at Work series, please drop me a line: kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org.