Southern California Wheatley Reunion Contemplated

Writes Sydell Howoritz Weiner (1964) - “I see that there are many Wheatley alums in and around San Francisco. I’ll bet that that’s true of Los Angeles, too. So I’m calling on SoCal Wheatley Alums to get our act together. I’m in Beverly Hills and I’d love to plan a reunion! sydellweiner@gmail.com

Wheatley Alumni Softball Game - Memorial Day Weekend

Details of Wheatley Alumni Softball Game, Saturday, May 25, 10:00 AM, at Wheatley

Saturday, May 25th 10:00a (Memorial Day Weekend)

Where: The Brandon Lustig Memorial Field -  11 Bacon Road Old Westbury, NY 11568

Contact Bernadette McCrave at 516 297-8147 or Coach David Burke at BURKED@EWSDMAIL.ORG.

SOCCER, TOO

Please note - Link currently unavailable in this forum.

Free Concert, Saturday, 5/18, In Greenwich Village

“Sheli Nan” is our own Shelley Nan Hershcopf, Class of 1968

Wheatley Fight Song

William (“Billy”) Kirchick (1969) version:

We are the Wildcats, Wildcats are we

We never lose our pep ability

So you do your best boys (I know chauvinistic, but no one was woke back then)

And we’ll do the rest boys

We are the Wheatley Wildcats!

Art Engoron (1967) version:

We are the Wildcats, Wildcats are we,

We never lose our pep-a-bility.

You do your best boys,

We’ll do the rest boys,

We are the Wildcats!

Writes Peter Siegel (1966) - “Arthur, The lyrics to the Wheatley Fight Song, which may be identical to “On Wisconsin,” are as follows:

“Onward Wheatley, onward Wheatley

Break right through that line

Winners all will heed the call

A touchdown sure this time, you rah-rah

Onward Wheatley, onward Wheatley

Fight on for her fame

Fight fellas, fight, fight, fight we’ll win this game”

Unfortunately, in my senior year, 1965-66, the song did not sufficiently inspire the team, which lost all of its games and scored only one touchdown. Best, Peter”

Graduates

1965 - Richard Goldfeder - Deceased

Writes daughter Christy Goldfeder Ingkavet (1991) - “Hi Art, I’ve been meaning to send this to you, but it has been hard for me to write it. 

Richard Goldfeder - 8/19/1947 - 3/3/2024

My father, Richard Goldfeder (Wheatley Class of 1965), passed away on March 3, 2024, from complications of Parkinson’s Disease. He is survived by: 

Brother James/Jim Goldfeder (now Jim Pahz) - Wheatley 1961 

Sister Susan Goldfeder Weiss - Wheatley 1968

Daughter Christy Goldfeder Ingkavet - Wheatley 1991 

Daughter Leslie Goldfeder Chaikin - Wheatley 1994 

Dad was born in Brooklyn, NY to Abraham and Katherine Goldfeder on August 19, 1947. He lived in Hollis, Queens before the family moved to the East Williston School District. 

The Goldfeders lived in Roslyn Heights on Dogleg Lane when Jim and Dad were in high school. Then, in Dad’s junior or senior year, they moved to Bengeyfield Drive in East Williston. 

Dad liked sports, and he played football in high school. He was friends with classmates Randy Seibel and Marshall Serwitz. 

Dad and I had some of the same teachers, namely Mr. Platt and Mr. Ouchi, and Stephen Ehre taught my Aunt Susan and me. Dad told me that he was not the greatest student, and sometimes he and his friends would cause trouble in class. 

Dad met Sallie Crick (our mom) at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Mom was also from Long Island, but much further east, in Westhampton. They got married halfway through school in 1967 and  had their wedding reception at the Bengeyfield Drive house. 

After graduating, my parents lived and worked in NYC. Later, they moved back to East Williston. 

We eventually moved to a house on Howard Street in which my aunt Susan’s high school friend, Randy Rosenblatt (1968), had grown up. And my classmate, Jodi Fingerman (1991), lived in the Bengeyfield Drive house in which my grandparents had lived. 

In his career, dad was a retail marketing sales executive. He worked with creative teams to develop custom point-of-purchase displays for beauty and consumer packaged goods brands. Besides working at other agencies, he also founded Display Equation, an agency startup with two business partners. He was an environmental pioneer in his industry, starting the “Recycle at Retail” initiative to reduce plastic waste. 

In his free time, dad enjoyed running, skiing, playing drums along to his favorite music, watching movies, and dining out. He loved driving, fast cars, traveling, and spending time at the beaches on Long Island. 

My parents divorced after 38 years together, and they both found love again. Dad got remarried, to Danielle Slanovec, and they lived in Blue Point and then Bayport (both in Suffolk County) — where Dad spent his last days. 

He’s lovingly remembered by his wife of 11 years, Danielle Slanovec Goldfeder, brother James and sister Susan, daughters Leslie Chaikin of West Islip, NY, and Christy Ingkavet (Stephen) of Austin, TX. 

He will be remembered by his stepchildren Cody Miller (Katie), Breanne Miller, and Renee O’Shaunessey (Ru). And he is remembered by his 3 granddaughters Sarah, Leah, and Anna Chaikin of West Islip, NY and 4 step-granddaughters: Riley, Kayla, and Bridget of Midland Park, NJ and Kailani of Bayport, LI. 

Richard with wife Danielle

Richard with daughter Christy

Richard with daughter Leslie

1967 - Robert (“Bobby”) Jacobs - Family Facts

Writes Bobby - “I was inspired to write a bio by Art’s admonition closing each newsletter and recently reading Gary Briefel”s recent post. He lived two houses away from me. I lived on the shortest street in the Roslyn Country Club: Hummock Lane; four houses on the corners of I.U. Willets Road and Percheron Lane.

When Kenny Lang, Howie Kirchick, Phil Kane and I formed our optimistic but destined-to-go-nowhere band, The NuTones (name taken from the stove vent in Howard’s kitchen!), Ernie Briefel took us to his warehouse and was able to get the guitars wholesale to launch our careers. We had our share of gigs; happy to see that Kenny went on to play music to this day.

The members of the Class of 1967 are celebrating turning 75, and I celebrated with my three kids, their spouses, and 7 grandchildren! My father’s business had a season box at the “new” Shea Stadium for the Mets, and I took my kids out of school for opening day as soon as they knew about baseball. I figured they would remember going to the Met’s opener with their father long after they forgot what they didn’t learn in school!

My wife and I; three kids and spouses; 6 of 7 grandchildren

After graduating NYU in the Bronx (no longer there), I started my “graduate” education as a management trainee for the Aetna Insurance Company in Richmond Va. On my first day at work the receptionist greeted me with “I heard you were Jewish,” in a long southern drawl.  When I confirmed it to be so, she replied, “Where did you put your horns?” (I learned about that long before, at Temple Sinai in Roslyn Heights). So started my career in the insurance business.

After a year with that program with a promotion to their Home Office in Hartford in the offing, I decided I was moving in the wrong direction, and I joined my father's insurance business, Jacobs & Jacobs Inc. Many will remember the office building on the Long Island Expressway Service Road in Roslyn Heights. We had a sign outside with a clock, and we received calls and letters from people complaining that they were late for work and to please correct it!

We worked together successfully until his retirement in 1990. Subsequently, my 20 or so employees and I continued to grow the business. However, in 2007, recognizing the era of Family Insurance agencies would soon prove challenging, I sold the business to Hub International, currently the largest privately held Insurance Brokers in the U.S. I am still working for them as a Senior Vice President in the area of Food Processors, Restaurants, Condominiums, and Co-op's, along with personal clients I have known for 30+ years.

Jeff Orling’s sailing adventures paralleled my own. My wife (Ceil; married 49 years) and I, and our three kids, had a 37’ sailboat, and we spent summer weekends cruising Long Island Sound, up and down the Connecticut and Long Island harbors. With a little more practice and acquired skills, I spent four summers sailing from Glen Cove to Martha’s Vineyard, where we built a house in 2006. The second-best day in a boat owners life came after the 4^th summer, when my family, too busy getting on with our lives, sold the boat.

So now I’m living in a Condo on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, summering on Martha’s Vineyard, taking piano lessons, and traveling the world. Visited Cuba, China, Moscow, St. Petersburg (one of the world’s great cities, which may not be viable for travel again), India, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Peru, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and throughout Europe. Our kids did junior year abroad and gave us the opportunity to visit Florence, Australia & New Zealand, and South Africa.

Jason, Jennifer, Ceil, Jamie, Bob

My Wheatley education started a valuable educational process that continues to this day. Staying curious turned out to be a valuable asset!

And who knew, pre-computer, that Mrs, Tegnell’s 8^th grade typing class would be one of life’s great building blocks! All the best, Bob(by) Jacobs 1967”

1967 - Howard Kirchick and Phil Kane - Hitchhiking

Writes Howard - “Hi Art, I thank Ken Gallard (1968) for his gracious comments about my bio.  His narrative also brought to mind a hitchhiking experience I had back in the day.

Classmate Phil Kane and I were hitchhiking along Glen Cove Road in front of the Carvel at which we worked.  Along comes a Rolls Royce that passes us by.  But then, the driver pulls over, stops, and starts backing up, and we notice the DPL (diplomat) plates on the car.  He stops by us, rolls down the window, and tells us to hop in.  Turns out he was the son of a UN diplomat.  He told us he wasn’t going to pick us up, but then he remembered the days when he’d be hitchhiking and cursed out the drivers that zoomed by.  We’d never been in a Rolls before, so that was pretty cool.”

Writes Art Engoron (1967) - While on the topic of hitchhiking…..during spring break of junior or senior (I’m having a senior moment) year, my classmates George Krauss, Mitch Stephens and I hitchhiked down to Washington D.C. We “crashed” with Antioch College friends of my older brother (Malcolm, 1964); and the next day we picketed the White House in favor of legalized hitchhiking. Mitch alerted the now-defunct-but-then-significant Washington Star, which sent a reporter to cover the “demonstration,” who interviewed Mitch and wrote a published article for the paper (copies are now collector’s items). Meanwhile (the timing is hazy), the three of us left our backpacks (or what passed for them in those days) right behind the US Capitol Building while we toured the inside. Of course, when we returned a few hours later, we found that our stuff had been ransacked. To this day, Mitch is convinced the ransackers were just vandals; I’m convinced it might have been the Capitol Police checking out three suspicious packages on the Capitol grounds. For some long-forgotten reason, I decided to hitchhike back to New York alone, and I ended up spending a night in the Centerville, Maryland jail, where I was sexually attacked by a much older inmate but escaped (by screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs) unscathed.

1967 - Jill Simon Forte - Scott Frishman - Jack Wolf

Writes Jill - “I was sad to hear that Scott Frishman’s wife passed away…..too early to die. I remember Scott.

I loved reading Jack Wolf’s post, and I was also one of those Refuseniks 😁. There never was nor ever will be anything I would recite a pledge to, and being an Atheist that also holds true. I didn’t know Jack back then, but I think I would have liked him. Reading the rest of his post, I definitely like him now 😁☮️.”

1969 - Richard Abraham Frankfort - Tributes

Writes Barbara Frankfort Patrick (1960) - Art. Thank you for posting my sister LauRha’s memorial for our brother Ricky. She expresses everything that my little big brother was. As a much older sister, now I can say I didn’t really appreciate having to take him on my dates, and I am certain whoever I might have been with wasn’t thrilled to have a chaperone. But Rick was so special. Being weak and addicted made him stronger, and he found being sober gave him insight and helped others find their inner peace. Rick saw the best in everyone, and he was the best of all of them. My beautiful sister-in-law Toodie saved him, and he found his soul mate and best friend. They built a beautiful and fulfilling life together. For all who knew him, he is smiling down on you.

There were five Frankfort Wildcats: Barbara 1960, William 1963, Richard 1969, Laura 1974, and Mollie 1974. How blessed we were!”

Writes Scott Frishman (1967) - “Art, I can’t believe that Richard Frankfort has passed away. Mike Cornfield, who lived next to Richard on Dogleg Lane, and I, who lived behind Richard on Pebble Lane, were all close friends growing up. His father, Jessie, turned our attic into a second floor with a playroom, crawl space, and housekeeper’s room; He was a master craftsman .

Richard certainly took after Jessie, as Richard’s sister, LauRha described in her Obituary of Richard in the Newsletter.

Art

  Arthur Fredericks Engoron, Class of 1967

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