Arthur Engoron
April 21, 2025

Dear Wheatley Wildcats and other Interested Persons,

Welcome to The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 201.

Wheatley Wins Mock Trial Tournament

After several months of competition in the Nassau County High School Mock Trial Tournament, sponsored by The Nassau County Bar Association, The Wheatley School came in 1^st Place, and W.T. Clarke High School (which opened in 1957, one year after Wheatley) came in 2^nd Place. A Mock Trial Awards Dinner will be held on Thursday, May 15, 2025. [[[I managed to wangle myself an invitation to the Awards Dinner, so expect an illustrated report soon thereafter. Art]]]

Class of 1995 30th-Year Reunion

The Class of 1995's 30th-Year Reunion will be held in NYC on Friday, June 13th, 2025. For more information, please email wheatleyrsvp@gmail.com. Peter Krasny

Faculty - Edward Ouchi Reconsidered

[[[See the comments of Todd Strasser (1968) below]]]

Wildcat Football Follow-Ups

Ed Roman (1961) Writes - “Art, I want to clarify a bit about the 1961 football team backfield. Not mentioned previously is that Chuck Shaffer (1961) was the team quarterback, at least as I remember from some 64 years ago. Bob Manniello (1961) was, indeed, the fullback, and Roger Sullivan (1961), Charlie Hill (1961), and, I believe, Bob Murphy (1963) were the halfbacks. I’m lways open to be corrected, as after eighty plus years, things get cloudier every day.”

Paul Giarmo (1976) Writes to John “Monk” Moncure (1960) - “Thanks, John!! BTW, I know what you were doing on Monday, October 27th, 1958. You were busy blocking a Levittown Division kick that end Pete Krumpe scooped up and raced 35 yards,’ according to ‘Newsday,’ Tuesday, October 28th, 1958 edition (page 23c). Great 👍 work! You guys beat up those Blue Dragons 32-0 that day. Go Wildcats!

Paul ("Spirit of '76") Giarmo

Wildcat Football - The End?

Paul Giarmo (1976) Writes - I read with interest the comments made by Adam Goldstein (1980) in Newsletter # 199 about the 1979 Wheatley football team, and he is correct that that team finished with a final record of 5 wins and 3 losses.

Adam is also correct in stating that this was the last Wildcat team with a winning record, although I would give an Honorable Mention to the 1987 team, which compiled a 3 win, 3 loss, 1 tie record. And we all know what happened 4 years later when the j.v. squad, the last team in Wheatley history, was disbanded on Friday, October 13th, 1991. (Friday the 13th, appropriately enough).

The 1979 team’s three losses were all by eight points or fewer; against Horace Mann H.S. from the Bronx by 8, against Jericho by 8, and against the Roslyn Bulldogs by 7 points.

Had the 1979 gridiron 🏈 greats gone undefeated that season, there's no telling how much more interest would have been generated in the football program at Wheatley, but history is history, and once again the Soccer Lobby won out and no football game was played again at Wheatley for 20 years, until September 24th, 2010, when the combined Carle Place/Wheatley WildFrog team took to the field and lost to perennial football powerhouse Plainedge Red Devils, (both varsity and junior varsity teams).

Both the 1979 and 1987 Wheatley football teams deserve to be recognized by the school district, as well as the 1956 through 1963 teams, all of which had winning records. Just sayin'.”

Paul ("Spirit of ’76") Giarmo

Graduates

1965 - Ron Judkoff Writes - “To Dig a Water Well in West Africa

My Peace Corps Story, Part 1

Peace Corps - Senegal 1971-72 and Burkina Faso 1972-73

First Trip to Ibel

I’m on a moped about 5 clicks west of Kedougou, Senegal. I’m going just fast enough to stay ahead of the tsetse flies, but slow enough to avoid snakes that sometimes slither suddenly across the road in front of me. In my pocket is a spark plug wrench and a small thin file so that I can quickly clean the plug if it clogs. I wear a nylon wind shirt despite the heat as slight protection against the cloud of tsetses that swarm whenever I have to clean the plug. I hear the telltale p’pop’pop and I stop to clean the plug. My own trailing dust cloud catches up to me. I pedal the moped to fire the engine for the remaining 15 kilometers to the village of Ibel, where I am to meet with the Chief and village elders to discuss digging a water well there. I have obtained an Oxfam grant administered by the good wives of the American Embassy, 800 kilometers northwest in Dakar, to buy tools and materials. This was all done via snail mail. It’s 1971, and there is no Internet, no mobile telephones, no outside contact whatsoever except for a four-seat mail plane that comes once a week…sometimes. There is advantage to this slow pace…African time. I have adapted, to the heat, the microbes, the food, the water. In the 6 months since I arrived in-country, I have been frequently ill, but not recently. I am evolving from a helpless “toubab” into a peace corps volunteer who might actually be capable of accomplishing something worthwhile.

There is head-high grass on both sides of the narrow dirt road. I see something ahead, a dead porcupine. The quills are valued by the villagers for decorations, so without thinking, I stop to retrieve some quills. I take the machete from the scabbard I have strapped to the moped to help extract the quills, and I leave the moped running on its kickstand which, I later think, saves my life. A leopard had just killed the porcupine when it heard the motor and hid in the grass. I’m messing with its kill, and this is a seriously pissed-off leopard. It yowls and leaps over my head from one side of the road to the other. I stand there stupidly, adrenaline pumping, with the machete held out in front of me pointing toward where I think it landed. I would be a very easy dinner, but the engine sound puts it off and it doesn’t come back. ‘Alhamdoulilai.’

In Ibel, I give the porcupine quills to the Chief, who gives them to his eldest daughter. We exchange the litany of greetings typical in this part of the world, where there is no means of news dissemination other than word of mouth. I tell of my adventure in broken Fulani aided by Samba Wouri Djiallo, who is my liaison, counterpart, and all-purpose mentor for this project. They think this very funny. West African bush humor dictates that if no-one died or was seriously injured, then it’s funny. We drink some ‘dolo’ together from a gourd bowl that is passed around the circle. I could have used something stronger. They are sitting gracefully on their heels. I am sitting awkwardly cross-legged in the dirt, incapable of that very useful position in a world with little furniture and no sit-down toilets.

We get down to business. I agree to provide all tools, know-how, and materials. The know-how part is somewhat questionable, as my total knowledge is from a book I read from the Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA) appropriate technology library on hand-digging water wells. There is no official Peace Corps water well program in this remote part of Senegal, but it’s what the locals say they need most. The chief and elders’ council agree to provide six workers for the digging team. Six is the minimum number because two people work at the bottom of the well digging and filling a bucket. The team of four at the top pulls up the bucket by a rope that goes through a pulley attached to a cross beam. When it is time to rotate, the four at the top have to pull up the people from the bottom. Providing a team of six workers is no small decision for the council. The village lives very close to the caloric intake balance point, so the rest of the village has to provide extra food for the digging team to make up for their extra energy output and their absence from working the fields. After considerable talk and more ‘dolo,’ the council approves. Samba Wouri is really happy to be getting a water well in his village. He is the brother of Yoro Djiallo, my Fulani teacher in Dakar during training. Yoro was the smartest kid in his village school, which got him a free ride to the regional school, where he was the smartest kid, and so on all the way to the University of Dakar, where he earns extra cash as a Peace Corps trainer. Yoro eventually landed a position with the Bank of America in California, but Samba Wouri remained in the village with a dream to make life there better.

Stealing a Jeep for a Higher Purpose

I am in Dakar, where I have hired a truck to carry cement, steel reinforcement rod, and tools to Kedougou. I will be needing some kind of transport to get material back and forth between Kedougou and Ibel. During my three-month training in Dakar, I noticed two identical defunct 1963 CJ-3b ¼ ton Jeeps back behind the Peace Corps Office. Moustaf is the mechanic and handyman who handles maintenance for the Peace Corps Office. I give Moustaf a hand with his chores whenever I can, and eventually he helps me cannibalize one of the jeeps to re-build the other. Moustaf is a whiz at welding and machining and I can… well… read the weathered Jeep repair manual that I found. We get one of the Jeeps running, which we keep secret, and I give Moustaf and his wife the biggest gift possible on a Peace Corps stipend. When it’s time for the transport truck to leave, I take the Jeep and we’re off to Kedougou. The trip goes smoothly except for a few scary moments when it looks like the relatively little ferry, used to get the relatively big and very heavy truck across the Gambia river at Mako, leans perilously close to the tipping point (photos below).

Water Witching and Dowsing: Where to Locate the Well

In Ibel, I have to decide where to put the well. The little VITA booklet has 3 pages on how to locate wells based on topology, geology, and vegetation. It doesn’t inspire confidence. What if we put a lot of effort into a dry hole? It’s a big investment for the village. Will I be blamed? I have an idea. I pick several spots that look good according to the VITA book, then I ask the chief to make the final selection among the spots. He asks the village gris-gris man (shaman) to make the final selection. The shaman choses the spot closest to his house, which is also close to the Chief’s house. I’m at least partially off the hook. We begin.

I pound a small piece of re-rod into the ground and measure out a meter of string, which I tie to the rod. I then trace a one-meter radius circle in the dirt with a stick tied to the other end of the string. Samba Wouri has cut a sturdy looking limb from a tree, long enough to span the hole. Our lives will depend on its strength, so I bridge it across two large rocks and we all jump on it simultaneously. It holds, so we erect the two vertical forked pieces that will hold the cross piece above the hole. I check the pulley brought from Dakar. Our lives will also depend on the little piece of metal that is the axis for the pulley wheel. We hang it from a tree, thread the rope through the pulley, and three of us hang and bounce on it. The pulley and the rope feel sound, so I carefully secure the pulley on the cross beam in the very center of the circle that I drew. The rope will now also serve as a kind of plumb bob so that we dig vertically as the hole gets deeper.

Americans on the Moon

It is 10 weeks later and we have finished the well. It is approximately 10 meters deep, concrete lined, and we have all gotten too casual about riding the rope up and down to the bottom. The well is yielding plenty of water and life in the village is about to change radically. Women who used to walk several miles each way to a seep with heavy clay jugs balanced on their heads now have extra time to start vegetable gardens. Water which used to be preserved exclusively for cooking and drinking can now be used for personal sanitation and irrigation. The team of six will have a new profession digging and maintaining wells.

It is dark and we are relaxing under a full moon after dinner. Earlier in the day, we had a ceremony when we finished the protective surface wall around the well perimeter. We each wrote our names with our fingers in the wet cement of the wall. Samba Wouri helps those who can’t write. “Ce puit etait fait par…” (This well was made by…). We stare up at the huge moon. Samba Wouri had heard that Americans had gone to the moon. ‘What did they find there?, he asks. I answered, ‘Just dry dirt and rocks and nothing growing.’ Samba sat for a minute, looked around (it is dry season), and said, ‘Why did they go there; the could’ve come here?,’ and then after some more reflection, ‘It was probably easier for them to go there.’ We all nod in agreement.

Afterword

‘Awaale Jam.’ I joined the Peace Corps during the Vietnam war because I wanted to serve my country by helping people. My experience in the Peace Corps was eye-opening. I was immersed in a new culture, and I was able to gain a much more visceral understanding of how a large portion of the world's population lives. I'm proud and grateful for the positive changes I was able to bring to the communities I served, sinking 40 water wells and building baby-birthing clinics and latrines. I became close to the people with whom I worked. When your life depends on those at the top of the well pulling you up on a rope from a 35'+ deep hole in the ground...you get close. We communicated in Fulani, Wolof, Mossi, and French. My only regret is that the technologies that allow today’s volunteers to continue their relationships long after leaving their villages did not exist in the early 1970s. I especially miss the DJiallo and Ba families. Most of the people I met could not read or write, so even snail-mail was not an option. A couple of years after I left Peace Corps, Samba Wouri did write me a recommendation letter through Pere Pelcot, a French Catholic priest in Kedougou, helping my admission to the Columbia University Graduate Architecture Program. In a way, my Peace Corps service set the direction for my life. The cultural sensitivity I gained served me well throughout my career at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which involved, in part, designing naturally conditioned building projects in Bamako and Marrakech and leading multi-national International Energy Agency research projects on energy efficiency and solar energy. To the wonderful people who allowed me to become a part of their lives, I say ‘njaaraama.’ You had a profound influence on the person I became.

Oh…I almost forgot, I parked the Jeep where it had been, behind the Peace Corps office, gave the key to Moustaf, headed to Burkina Faso (where there was an active water well program) for another 18 months to dig more wells, cashed in my ticket home, and hitched a ride with some ethno-musicologists bound for the Sahara Desert. But don’t get me started, that’s a whole other story.

Ron Judkoff, FASHRAE

Chief Architectural Engineer, Emeritus

Center for Building Science

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

12/8/2024