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Wishful Thinking
Bob Haverstick speaks for the Silent Generation
By Traci Cumbay, for Fishers/Geist Magazine, May/June 2007 edition
Only Bob Haverstick has the vision to utilize the restorative powers of Gomer Pyle.
Haverstick founded Never Too Late, an organization devoted to turning wishes into reality for the Silent Generation, people born from about 1925 to 1942.
When he learned of a woman whose fondest desire was to speak to the man who gave her goose bumps every year when he sang “Back Home Again in Indiana” before the Indianapolis 500, Haverstick made it happen.
A 20-minute phone call and a promise from Nabors that he’d be singing for her the following May didn’t bring about a miracle for the woman with terminal cancer, but it was enough to get her out of bed and re-engaged with life.
That result is the norm for Haverstick’s projects, which he undertakes because he frets that people become invisible after a certain age.
No one is invisible floating Earthward in a parachute or bellowing down the street on a Harley or carrying a big bouquet of roses — the kinds of things Haverstick makes happen through Never Too Late.
The inspiration came from a play called “Touching Lives,” by Rita Kohn. In it, college students get a taste of what it’s like to be elderly, and each is granted a wish as an older person. After the experience, the again-young students “get it” — that it’s great to get your MBA and make loads of money, but it’s even better to do something significant along the way. Never Too Late bubbled into Haverstick’s mind as a result of that play.
Haverstick himself nearly gave up when the organization got off to a lackluster start in 2000.
“I thought I’d have people standing in line to make wishes,” he said. Instead, he got a request for some new clothes and one for a chance to ride a tractor again. And mostly he got silence.
“This generation just doesn’t ask for anything,” Haverstick said. “It doesn’t occur to them.”
As word of his organization spread, family members started doing the asking for their reserved relatives. Now, Never Too Late has granted 1,220 wishes and is going strong.
A glimpse into the wish fulfillment business:
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Wishes on wheels: 100-year-old Margaret Embree begrudgingly put a helmet over her new perm and pumped her fist as she rode down the street in the sidecar of a Harley; 93-year-old Jimmy Dunham came to Indiana from California to ride a 500 Festival Parade float; and 92-year-old Alice Campbell suited up and took a lap around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, topping 170 mph. |
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Margaret Embree Cruises downtown Parker City |
Dick Mittman Interviews Jimmy Dunham |
Thumbs up from Alice Campbell |
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Heads in the clouds: Haverstick made sure Esther and Albert McDaniel got clearance from their doctors before granting their wish to parachute in celebration of their 60th anniversary, and he has arranged for 12 wheelchair-bound residents of Morristown Manor to take hot air balloon flights. |
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Esther McDaniel drops in for a landing along with Gene Newsom at the end of her anniversary skydive. |
Albert McDaniel and Dennis Anderson, top, freefall from about 13,000 feet over the airport at Greensburg. |
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Wishing for a star: Two Brookview Healthcare residents rubbed elbows with Reba McIntire before taking in her concert; 87-year-old former midget racer Ray Parish hugged A.J. Foyt during a tour of his garage at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway; and 77 year-old Jo Ann Imlay talked baseball with Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench. |
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James Hoskins and Reba McIntire |
A.J. Foyt and Ray Parish (seated.) |
Johnny Bench Fan, Jo Ann Imlay |
Making it happen: Average cost to fulfill a wish is $283 (plus a lot of donated goods and services). “Some wishes aren’t grandiose but have a special significance for everyone involved,” Haverstick said, noting as examples dinner with a loved one (a common wish), a new walker or the chance to feel necessary through work.
Limits: “People call and say something like, ‘I want to take 16 family members on an overseas cruise,’ and I say, ‘Good luck with that.’.”
Never Too Late
To donate or to request a wish, visit www.nevertoolate.org or call 317.823.4705.
