Celebrating a life as the end nears

If you visit Richard Logan, he'll tell you he's not dying today, but maybe tomorrow.

He'll tell you he's 94 and suffering from congestive heart failure and was told last week that he may not live much longer, that there's nothing the doctors can do to help anymore, and that he was almost dead last Sunday.

He'll ask you if he looks like somebody who's dying as he raises his glass and sips his wine from a straw. You'll look at him and think yes, but still tell him no.

He'll tell you he's vowed to not spend his last days in mourning. In his own words, "I'm not gonna mourn, I'm gonna party."

He plans on spending his last days talking, sharing stories and reliving experiences.

He wants to gather his friends, drink some wine and maybe eat his favorite food, Oysters Rockefeller.

He'll tell you that instead of wasting time being depressed after he heard the news, he instead called his friends and invited them over for a drink.

"How many people do you know that are about to die call up all the people they know and say, 'hey, let's have a drink," Logan asked last week.  

He'll tell you he's writing a book about his life, that he has seven unfinished chapters and could probably write 30 more if he needed to. It's a book that he understands may never be finished.

He'll ask his caregiver to go find the manuscript and the caregiver will come back with a few scattered pages, out of order with some duplicates, and titled "Age 94—Too old to write? By Richard H. Logan".

He'll tell you he's a World War II veteran, a journalist, an editor, a teacher and a photographer.  

He'll tell you many of his accomplishments have occurred by accident: his professional photography career, becoming a journalism professor and a writer, and publishing his first book were all accidents.

With that, he'll share with you his life story, not chronologically, but as snapshots in time, moving on to the next memory as quickly as the one before entered his mind.

He'll tell you last week wasn't the first time he's been told he's been told his time was short.

In July of 1944, when he was serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps, three military doctors told Logan he wouldn't live more than a year. Sixty-seven years later, he's still here.

He'll tell you he's visited more than 70 countries, often as an honorary guest of the government, as he and his wife were once in Taiwan and also in Egypt. 

If you're lucky, he'll share his old photographs with you.

He began his professional career as a self-taught photographer, but later studied photography at the University of Denver, the Fred Archer School of Photography in Los Angeles, and the Winoa School of Photography. He also received a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi, where he taught as an assistant journalism professor. He later taught journalism at Southwest Texas State College.

He's had nearly every type of photography job in the business – he’s operated professional photographic studios, worked as a photographer for publishing companies and newspapers and even owned his own advertising and industrial photography agency.

His book, "Elements of Photo Reporting", written by accident of course, was reviewed by the New York Times.

He has kept of his old photographs filed in a dusty case. They are printed in black and white on large, stiff poster board. There are portraits of old students, pin-ups from the ‘60s and ‘70s, scenes from Death Valley and the Yucatan Peninsula, structural photos of hardware and machinery from his time in the service, and one of a perched mountain jay.

The pinup photos will prompt him to talk about his younger years, which he spent drinking and chasing girls, or rather as he will tell you, the girls chased him.

"I wasn't going out trying to put the make on them, they were trying to put the make on me," he said.

He'll share with you his mottos "I had seven beers with the wrong woman," and, "let the good times roll."

Most of his possessions have been given away to friends and to Faith's Thrift Hut, a building he purchased and donated to the Humane Society and named after his wife, Faith. He's kept his framed awards on the wall from the Professional Photographers of America as well as some of his carpentry pieces and a portrait of himself when he was only four years old.

He has also arranged to donate his house on Garrison Avenue to a church across the street once he and his wife pass.

He'll tell you about the many problems with women he's had in his life.  He's been married three times, and one of those marriages lasted for only four days.

He's been married to his wife, Faith, for 61 years now.

Faith sat next to him last week and never spoke a word. She is 92 and now suffers from dementia. Her caregiver, Scott Todd said she does really well, but most of the time she's not there. Logan has arranged for her to remain living at home with her caregiver after he passes.  

He'll tell her "I still love you, dear," as he reflects on their 61 years of marriage.

Other than Faith, he has no family. 

He'll tell you he's lived his life with no regrets. "Why would I have any regrets?" he'll ask.

"We all have to go to heaven sometime," Logan said. "So what are you gonna do? Are you gonna mourn?"

He'll tell you he's had a good life.