Walter O’Rourke is a 65-year-old multi-millionaire whose current income from investments exceeds $2 million per year. He has a 140 acre property in Delaware. He owns two homes in Florida. He owns an insurance company. He is also New Jersey Transit conductor.

Obviously, he doesn’t need the money. Heck, he owns the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad, a 112-mile stretch of track that runs along the Cheat River in West Virginia. He does it for the love, just as he builds model trains in a 2-storey, 4,000 square foot workshop, complete with 300 foot railroad track.

Walter sums it up best:”I realize that some people, especially some of my co-workers, might see me as a strange duck,” Mr. O’Rourke said, feeding his new engine a drop of oil. “But where does it say that a man can’t love what he does for a living?”If you didn’t have to work for a living, is there work that you would live to do? I’m on vacation, giving my kids a chance to see their grandparents (editor’s note–this was true five days ago, when I first wrote this post. But dial-up issues prevented me from posting until now). It struck me that grandparenting is a lot like working a job that you love. You don’t have to do it. But you love it so much that you can’t get enough.