I Am Still Learning: Recollections and What I've Learned along the Way

By Wayne Herivel

“I am still learning” is a phrase to always keep in your mind. Difficulties you deal with usually provide learning opportunities. You may have figured out how to solve a problem that you hadn’t seen before, or maybe you learned what caused the difficulty in the first place, and now you can prevent it from happening again. Going a little further, if you can learn from other people’s difficulties, you are two steps ahead. Learning what they did to solve the problem may help you with the same problem, and if you are lucky, learning what caused their problem in the first place may enable you to avoid it happening to you.

I am now well into my eighth decade of life. Some days I think I’ve seen/solved most of the problems that may yet come up; other days, new problems come as unwanted surprises, so I am still learning too. I thought it was about time to share some of my experiences in the hope that what I’ve learned will help you. There are few guarantees in life, but with a little planning and forethought, you can often tip the scales in your favor, or you can change the odds a little more to your benefit. As a result, hopefully you will be able to avoid most major problems and minimize the impact caused by the others.

The “trip” you are about to take will highlight many experiences from my life, some of which (hopefully) will stay with you, and you will benefit from what I learned without pain to yourself. I’ve always tried to see the fun parts of everything, whenever the situation permits. I also try to share what I’ve learned, in appreciation to all those before me that shared with me what they learned.

Enjoy the “trip.” I hope you will find many sections that you will pass along with your own experiences to benefit others. We all are still learning.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685178611

Book preview

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I Am Still Learning

Recollections and What I've Learned along the Way

Wayne Herivel

Copyright © 2022 by Wayne Herivel

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Growing Up and School

The Working Years 1970–1998

The Retirement Years, 1998–Present

I Am Still Learning

To my wife Barbara Jean

For making our years together the best years

Foreword

Everyone has a story to tell. I love to hear about people’s life stories. They give us a window into the storyteller’s life. They allow us to get to know the author much better, but they also help us to relate more fully and find common experiences.

Once in a while, someone takes the time to write about one’s life experiences and reflect on them and ask, What did I learn from that? and then share those lessons with friends, new and old. Here is one of those opportunities to read about the author’s life stories and be inspired to see the lesson that lies therein.

I have known author Wayne Herivel for several years, but this book allows me to not only know him better but gives me a gift of learning his lessons from life. He has skillfully used a down home style of sharing his stories and woven wonderful lessons that challenge the reader to reflect and observe the lessons that he shares.

He reminds me of one of my favorite authors and speaker, Simon Sinek. He has written several books and given vast numbers of speeches on various topics, most of which deal with lessons for business leadership. One of my favorites is one that is framed in a YouTube video called Simon Sinek: Change Your Future—Life Changing Motivational Speech.

The reason that Wayne’s book reminds me of this is that Sinek unpeels five stories and draws five lessons for life. His five lessons include the following:

Go after the things that you want. Some people see the things that they want, and some people see the things that prevent them from getting the things that they want.

Sometimes you are the problem. Take accountability for your actions (the things you do right as well as the things you do wrong). It must be a balanced equation.

Take care of each other. You cannot do it all by yourself. Get really good at helping the person next to you. Be ready to ask for help and willing to help others.

Learn to be the last to speak. The skill of being the last to speak does two things: (1) It gives everyone else in the room the feeling that they have been heard and have contributed, and (2) it gives you the benefit of hearing what everyone else thinks before you render your opinion.

Remember the lesson of humility and gratitude. In life you can accept all the perks, but remember they are not meant for you; they are meant for the position you hold.

Wayne’s book has many lessons that I would fit into Sinek’s life advice. I encourage you to find a comfortable reading spot and read a series of stores, all of which allows the reader to pause and reflect on can I relate to that lesson? or can I draw another lesson from that story?

I challenge you to enjoy the read and, with Wayne, experience that you are still learning.

Dr. Dean Swanson is a retired educator and insurance professional. He served as a high school teacher, a school administrator, a college administrator, and a college professor. He has organized and administered large health insurance pools, developed and administered multi-lines of insurance and investment services, and served as CEO of a large public corporation that provided a wide array of services to its members.

Dean continues to mentor small business CEOs as a volunteer for SCORE and volunteers service as a Lion and for his church.

Introduction

Today is my birthday. I am now well into the eighth decade of my life. Birthdays always get me thinking of the past—past experiences, past events, and past successes and failures. I feel that I have learned a few things along the way, and maybe by sharing some of the highlights, others can benefit. Hopefully you will gain from my successes and from my failures as well and enjoy the trip along the way.

The first quarter of a century I spent growing up, attending school and preparing for a career in engineering. It started with extraordinary delight when I saw a dog for the first time and concluded with my graduation from the University of Michigan and marrying the love of my life.

Early on, there were many things at school that really didn’t seem important. Did you ever feel this way in history class or English class or a mathematics class? Maybe the most important thing was for us just to be exposed to lots of things so we could discover what was most interesting to ourselves…and maybe paving the way for a more well-rounded future, maybe even encouraging more in-depth study that would ultimately lead to a satisfying career. Maybe even more important than all of that was simply learning how to learn. Maybe learning to socialize with others, making friends and long-term relationships, and learning how to both enjoy and work with others were also really important parts of this period. Somewhere along the line, I learned that engineering was the career for me. The U of M—Dearborn Campus included (actually required) four cooperative work assignments in industry in the chosen field of study. I was lucky to be accepted at IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, for my first cooperative period of four months. As it turned out, I was invited back for all four co-op work periods over three years and was hired by IBM upon graduation.

The second quarter century began with a rush of life-changing events in a really short period of time—we were starting our life together in marriage; then moving my things out of the house in Detroit, Michigan; then onto collecting and moving Barbara Jean’s possessions out of her family home in Grand Rapids, Michigan; locating and buying our first home in Minnesota; starting full-time work at IBM; and then getting drafted into the Army.

I was fortunate to be assigned to the Army post at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico where BJ was soon able to join me. Upon our return home from the service, we were happy to be back in our own home again and to return to work at IBM. Interesting that my first four-month co-op assignment turned into an interesting and challenging twenty-five-year career at IBM, and I don’t regret a minute of it.

This period of time yielded great opportunities and experiences we’ll never forget—opportunities for professional work and growth for both of us, many travel opportunities, new friends, and lots of fun times together. Marking the end was early retirement.

Early retirement at fifty and the thought of spending the next quarter century (and beyond) on our own savings seemed unreachable twenty years earlier. My wife and I worked and planned for this the best we could and consciously made decisions along the way to achieve this goal. We gave our all at our chosen professions and to the companies we worked for. We saved all we could. We tried to invest wisely. We lived well within our means. With Barbara Jean working as a certified registered nurse anesthetist for more than half this time, we were together able to achieve the goal we set for ourselves.

I always thought reaching retirement should be considered more like a career change, where the retirees can move into any new area(s) of interest, without consideration or need of compensation. So upon retirement, I volunteered at several different organizations to give back all I could, with the idea that I would gradually shift from equal time in each job to more and more time on those positions where I thought I was doing the most good (and enjoying the work the most).

Interestingly, the people I met and what I learned from them enabled me to start a small technology business in my home. I continue to maintain and grow my skills in the area of internet application development, the main deliverable being interactive websites for small businesses.

Now about to begin the fourth quarter century, I reflect on how grateful I am for the foundation and love I received from the best parents in the world; the people along the way who shared their knowledge, faith, and teaching skills with me; my wife who made the trip way more interesting, loving, and meaningful than it would have been; the satisfying work and professional challenges provided by the US Army, IBM, and Mayo Clinic; and the ongoing support of family and friends.

My father often told me, "Learn all you can when you are young because when you get older, people are less willing to help you. And no one can ever take your education away from you." I have been really lucky to have had people around who were willing to help me, but I did encounter many less willing. Maybe a willingness to help others is a little contagious, and helpfulness is returned.

It is my hope that many of the things I have learned will benefit you too.

1

Growing Up and School

My earliest memory was my first steps. Actually, having heard the story so many times, I may only think I remember it. The stage was set by my grandfather on my mother’s side, who had a small farm near Mesick, Michigan (a small town south of Traverse City and best known for mushrooms). The forty-acre farm seemed massive to me back then. About half was open fields that seemed to go on forever; the other half was wooded, too dense and dark to explore alone. Walking with my father and grandfather years later, following the trails used for tapping trees for making maple syrup, was still a time when I didn’t get very far from either of them for fear of getting lost. Each tree looked like every other tree; there were no landmarks in the woods. My grandfather and the other area farmers met on a regular basis to discuss farming issues, maintain social connections, probably argue politics, and play cards. The popular game at the time was euchre. The game is played by four people, and players across are partners. Only twenty-four cards from a standard poker deck are used. Each player is dealt five cards with the remaining four cards in the blind. The game was fairly fast paced, so when you had a good hand, victory came quickly, and conversely, a bad hand passed almost as quickly. The meetings were identified as the Grange.

The first steps. When visiting my grandfather at a very early age, we went to Grange. I was really delighted when I saw a dog across the wooden floor in the meeting hall. Maybe this was the first dog I ever saw? Without hesitation, I stood up and walked the twenty to thirty feet across the floor to get to the dog. All the prior encouragement given by my parents hadn’t before yielded any results, but when I saw the dog, walking came more or less naturally.

Sometimes you are better off not knowing that you can’t do something so you can just do it.

*****

I think I remember my first words too. I remember being in a crib with high wooden sides. The two ends were solid, but the sides had vertical bars. I remember my mother coming in and lowering one side and lifting me out many times. On one occasion, the bars were not raised to the full height, and I got hung up when I was almost halfway out or halfway over the side. This was one of those opportunities that I failed to take full advantage of, and I don’t recall that there was ever another chance like this. The sides were always up from then on—Mom made sure of it. As I was able to stand by holding onto the sides, I became more and more bored being in the crib. I had almost two years of hearing conversations and began to notice that things usually changed after these verbal exchanges. Someone spoke, and others paid attention. Sometimes actions began. On one day, bored as ever, I called out, "Come get Wayne now, please!" To my surprise, Mom instantly raced into my room and pulled me up in her arms with extraordinary delight. With this positive feedback, I was rarely quiet after this.

Later in life, my mother told me how worried she was that I wasn’t talking for over two years. She had contacted the doctor multiple times to express her concern and with the relatives too. She was overjoyed when I could talk…and totally shocked that my first intelligible utterance was a complete sentence.

*****

I remember the first joke I learned at an early age, and I would most willingly tell it at every opportunity. My father or mother would often ask me to tell a joke whenever we were at a social gathering and even at the dinner table with many guests, knowing full well that I only had one joke to tell. I enjoyed this very much. All the guests would listen attentively and then roar with laughter, even those who heard the joke many times before. As I think back, my parents were simply encouraging me to join the conversation and be a part of it. Truly a gift to be so welcomed and made comfortable in many settings, by loving parents. The joke, let me tell it one more time: Two kids were walking along, and the first said to the other, Look at the watch I just found!

The second said, Wow, really neat. What time is it?

The first replied, Quarter after.

The second asked, Quarter after what?

And the first replied, "I don’t know, it only has one hand!"

I eventually learned a second joke, and the opportunities to share continued: There was this young boy carrying a box, and it was dripping. Another boy, walking beside, put his finger under the box to catch the drips and tasted it, then remarked, Hey, you’ve got pickles! To which the first boy replied, "No, puppies!"

*****

I was raised by mature parents. My parents were thirty-eight and forty years young when I was born. Many of their friends had grandkids my age. My father worked hard in many different jobs and maintained our house and yard to perfection. I don’t ever remember him calling in any service men/tradesmen to fix things; he did it himself. This in itself was a lesson to me: figure out what is wrong and then figure out how to fix it. Interests and gatherings were within the family and with friends in the neighborhood. We didn’t play baseball much. My mother always set a nice table. When guests were invited for dinner, it was an elaborate deal starting with polishing the silver. She was born on a farm. She prepared meals that I will never forget. I assisted (with careful supervision) to help her make every event very special.

Although we had a forty-year age difference and participation in some physical activities was limited, I had the benefit of loving parents who were comfortable with where they were in life, and family life was stable. I probably had more exposure to mature things earlier than most, especially the importance of a good education. My father had many different jobs. He learned each quickly but did not have the benefit of in-depth education beyond high school. I think this fact is what drove him to encourage me to get a good education and career so that I wouldn’t be moving from job to job like he did. So instead of sports, focus was on things like Lionel® electric trains, AC Gilbert® Erector sets, American Plastic Bricks®, Lincoln Logs®, card and board games, and travel played bigger roles in my upbringing.

Like most parents, they wanted the best for me. The wanted me to have a better life than they had and the learning started early without me ever realizing what was happening. Things like encouraging me to tell the only joke I knew, just to feel welcome to participate in adult conversations. In the days when people used their Kodak Carousel slide projector to show slides of their latest trip, I was often asked to help describe what we were showing. When we played bingo, I was soon promoted to caller. Little things but they were doing what they thought would be good for me. I am sure all parents do the same thing, surely with different activities/events, but the objective is the same: do all you can to encourage participation and self-expression at every opportunity. And maybe teach a new skill along the way.

*****

Grandpa’s farm was lots of fun. I remember being put on top of Queenie, the old reliable plow horse. A really huge animal but calm and steady. On one occasion, Grandpa was going to prepare the garden near the house for planting some vegetables. Grandpa planted lots of vegetables, and Grandma canned most of it. When I was just five years old, plowing the little garden was the fun part of the whole trip to the farm. The garden plot was about fifty yards long and thirty yards wide. Queenie was hitched up to some kind of plow. Grandpa had the reins over one shoulder and under the other arm. Both his hands were on the handles of the plow, and he directed Queenie with just three or four different utterances. They were a team, both knew what their part was, and on they went with it, up and back and repeat.

There were some huge trees adjacent that had branches overhanging the garden plot. I remember grabbing the leaves and pulling a few off on each back-and-forth trip. Then I got the idea of grabbing the branch really well, and maybe breaking off a piece to carry. The branches slipped through my little hands on multiple attempts as I rode atop Queenie. Getting more and more determined, I finally grabbed the branch at the next opportunity, firmly with both hands, letting go of the brass decoration on top of the harness. I was feeling quite good about myself until I felt Queenie slip away from under me and realized that I actually pulled myself off. Luckily I swung down and away from the plow as the branch couldn’t hold me up, and there I was sitting in the plowed ground, watching the back side of Queenie and then Grandpa go by. I thought, Uh-oh, I’m in real trouble this time. Grandpa didn’t seem to notice what I had done, so I thought maybe I got away with this trick, this time. I then got up, walked across to the barbed wire fence, climbed through it, and ran to the house. Mom didn’t think much about it, no doubt thinking that Grandpa had finished the work and sent me in, so it looked like I was in the clear.

Quite sometime later, Grandpa came in exclaiming that Wayne is gone, and I don’t know what happened to him. He went on to say he just happened to look up at Queenie and discovered I wasn’t there anymore! I thought my luck just ran out—I’m really in for it this time.

It took some time for all the questions and explanations before what really happened was worked out, and everyone then calmed down. Really lucky I didn’t fall onto the plow—that would not have been a good thing.

*****

I have lots of good memories from the farm. The farm was my grandfather’s pride and joy. The farm was just forty acres, with one plow horse and two milking cows. I never counted all the chickens and turkeys, but there were lots of them too. Oh yes, there were three house pets: a beautiful collie and two cats (maybe there were more cats, but there were only two in the house). At Thanksgiving, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the folks chasing all the turkeys until the specific one Grandpa wanted was finally cornered and captured. I didn’t enjoy seeing the process that followed, beginning with the beheading, but the images were forgotten by the time dinner was served. The table was in the center of the room and was large enough for three or four people on each side. We would go to several rooms to pull together enough chairs for everyone. The three dogs (the one collie who lived here, my dog Bonnie, and my aunt’s dog William) and the two cats had learned the best places to lay while waiting for their dinners: under the sewing cabinet, under the sofa, and under the TV table. Lots safer for them than trying to dodge all the foot traffic in the room.

Bonnie (my medium sized black cocker spaniel) loved all the smells she found at the farm. The cows often were loose in the yard and not in their pens. When we arrived and drove into the yard, Bonnie couldn’t wait to jump out of the car; sometimes she was out of the window even before we came to a stop. I think she could pick up the scents from the farm when we were still a mile or two away. We kept her under control for the first night knowing all that could happen in the dark. Remembering (and still enjoying) all the great smells in the morning, she couldn’t hold herself back when the door on the porch was opened. She took off running to the first fresh cow pile and began rolling on her back in the middle of it. All could see that she was in dog heaven in the freshness and warmth, in the softness and in the smell she loved. We all called and yelled to Bonnie to Come! but in her most delightful place, she would not be hurried. She had ridden in a car for twelve or more hours the day before, and this was her earned reward, and she must have thought that this was why we brought her here in the first place. Then we went for the leash and Mom or Dad would connect her up, and with some patience and a lot of pull, got Bonnie out of the cow pile. Grandpa would eventually tire of laughing and get the galvanized washtub out again, like he did every time we visited. He would begin filling it with ice-cold well water and getting some dry laundry detergent, as the battle to get Bonnie into the bath started. This live entertainment was worth the trip for me, but not so much so for Mom. And you know the rest of the story. As soon as Bonnie was as clean as fresh linen, she rolled in the grass to get rid of that smell. Over a week or two visiting at the farm, this circus act was usually repeated three or four times.

Getting back to the beginning, the trip to Mesick, Michigan, from Detroit was a whole day of travel. We packed carefully for the trip. Mom had all the clothes ironed and laid carefully in the suitcases, lunch and snacks in a wicker basket, soft drinks in an aluminum ice chest, several folded up maps from the local gas station, and off we went before dawn. We had a few four-lane roads, but the trip then was mostly two-lane. In several areas, the shortest route took us around many small lakes with sharp winding turns. I enjoyed seeing all the cottages around the lakes, the mailboxes with reflectors (it would be dark before we got this far), and occasionally the reflection of the headlights from the bottom of two cans positioned to look like two mammoth eyes of something you didn’t want to meet. During the daylight hours, we played several different games to make the trip go quicker. Auto bingo was one of the favorites. We each had a bingo card with plastic covers to slide over the images on the card. Images of cows, horses, houses, dogs, tall buildings, lakes, cars, trucks, boats, and more. The first one to spot something would call it out and slide the cover over that image. Great fun, no batteries were required, and we didn’t have to be concerned about internet connectivity or signal strength.

My Aunt Mabel and Uncle Leonard packed a little differently—not better or worse, just really differently. Many of the trips to the farm were with my aunt and uncle. We didn’t ride together but planned on arriving at about the same time. I couldn’t help but notice upon arrival that their belongings were simply laid (more like tossed) into the trunk of the car; no suitcases were ever used or required. Made quite a pile of clothes, but you could easily see if you had something or if you forgot something. It was all visible in the stack if you had packed it. They packed food for the trip, and as far as I knew, they never stopped to eat. Every imaginable variety of crackers, potato chips, pretzels, cheese, popcorn, bread, coffee, soup, and soda pop was all in the back seat. No extra packaging was involved here either, so it was quite easy for them to simply reach back and get whatever they had a taste for. I think they ate as a continuous process as opposed to a structured meal at a roadside picnic table like we had. Actually seemed to me like the best way to deal with traveling—no heavy suitcases and a buffet in the back—but Mom stayed with the more structured approach. As two sisters, they were really quite different individuals.

*****

My grandfather had a fairly decent sized garden plot dedicated to strawberries. This was in addition to the vegetable garden. It wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but every summer that we were at the farm, we helped to pick the berries. My mother didn’t like bending over to get the berries, but for me just sitting on the ground and scooting along, collecting the low-hanging fruit was just fine. I did complain some, and for sure I didn’t have nearly the same productivity of the adults. My aunt would often come to my rescue and pour the berries she picked into my basket. Loved her even more for helping me in this way; made me look good, but I did feel a little guilty.