Welcome to The Wheatley School
Alumni Association Newsletter # 217.
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Bernadette McCrave Quinn (1983)
Writes -
Dear East Williston
families:
As we embark on another
school year, we would like to thank everyone for their continued support of
the Wildcat Athletic Foundation.
Two years ago, we started
to fundraise through placing family banners around our athletic fields and
courts.
Thanks to the support of
the district, we have been able to purchase tents for use at the fields for
the athletes, senior banners for senior day/night celebrations, care packages
for those students/teams participating in state championships, etc. We have
also instituted an annual scholarship for one senior boy and one senior girl
which is given to those students who represent what the Wildcat Athletic
Foundation is all about.
We are a 501(c)(3)
Organization, so your donations are tax deductible.
If you would simply like
to make a donation for use by a specific athletic program, we would welcome
that as well.
All funds raised go
directly to the student athletes.
Banners will cost $100.
Please fill out the form below to order your new banner and indicate which
fields, court or gymnasium that you would like your banner placed at.
Payment can be made via
zelle – wildcatathleticfoundation@gmail.com
Payment can also be made
by check...payable to..
The Wildcat Athletic
Foundation.
11 Bacon Road
Old Westbury, NY 11568
https://forms.gle/sMmWhNsY9T23fV6h6
Thank You for your
support! GO WILDCATS!!
If you have any
questions, please reach out to Bernadette McCrave Quinn at
The wildcatathleticfoundation@gmail.com
Toni Buckner LaPietra Writes:
Classmates,
As part of the Wheatley
Class of 1975's 50th-Year Reunion Weekend, October 10-12, 2025, several
classmates have been working together on forming the Wildcats
Reunion Band. The band consists of Mark Lubin
on guitar, Susan Rotholz on flute and vocals, Michael
Sadowsky on drums and vocals, Toni (Buckner) LaPietra
on keyboard and vocals (all 1975 graduates) and Joe
Spallina on bass guitar and vocals (if Joe doesn't sound
familiar, that's because, sadly, he was not a Wheatley attendee, but he is
graciously volunteering his talents).
We have been having a
great time selecting and practicing songs from our High School years (and
beyond) for the performance on Saturday, October 11, 2025 at 2:00pm in the
Wheatley cafeteria. But wait! This is not just a performance. We need you to
join us in, hold on to your hats---Wheatley-aoke! No, no, not
karaoke per se, but where our fellow classmates can join us 'on stage' with
songs of your choice, on instruments of your choice. This means, we need you!
If you play an instrument and/or sing, tell us your favorite song and we will
be ready for you to join us. If you wail on harmonica, or play a mean sax, we
want you! We only ask that you send us your requests by August 15, so we have
time to back you up in style.
The Wheatley-aoke/Wildcats
Reunion Band performance is open to all Wheatley Class of
1975 members, alumni and friends. You don't have to have signed up for the
Sunday dinner to attend, but we hope to see you there, too!
Contact Toni (Buckner)
LaPietra: musicboxstudios@verizon.net and tell us what
song/instrument, etc., you'd like to sing/play.
If you haven’t signed up
for the reunion yet, you can obtain all information by contacting us at Wheatleyclassof1975@gmail.com.”
Randi Glasser Dawson (1979) Writes
- “I am sorry to learn of the
passing of Leah Tchack. I remember her husband, Ted Tchack. Condolences to
the families.”
1958 - Bruce Clark - Deceased
Robert Holley (1958) Writes - Hi Arthur, I sadly announce the demise of my
classmate, Bruce Clark.
I was not that close to
Bruce in our high school years, but I know that he became pretty much the
"Class Shepherd" for Wheatley's first graduating class, the Class
of 1958, and he kept careful track of the whereabouts and doings of most of
our graduates. He took time out from a very busy and successful law practice
to engineer several of our ten-year reunions-- the final being our fiftieth,
in 2008. My wife and I were fortunate to be his and his wife Judith's house
guests for that memorable affair.
I was partly responsible
for the management of our Class of 1958 50th-year Reunion Blog, on which we
posted the pre- and post-graduation adventures of many of our classmates.
Bruce and I shared a common bond in that each of us had, by fortune, chosen a
college course elective that eventually directed our careers (his:
anatomy/physiology; mine: computer programming), and I had saved a copy of
his 2008 submission to our Reunion Blog (see below). I wish to pass it on for
everyone to read; not only was Bruce a fine and very notable attorney, he was
a GREAT storyteller...Reading it again after 17 years was quite a cheerful
experience!
My best wishes
VQ
Robert Holley
Wheatley Class of 1958
////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Bruce Clark’s 2008 Submission to
his Class of 1958 50th-Year Reunion Blog:
The 50th anniversary of
our graduation fromWheatley. I’m kind of excited. Those two years after
Mineola High School and before college were, for me, two of the best in my
life. The anniversary is another opportunity to think about that good, safe,
enjoyable time. We were all new at Wheatley, and we were the senior class–for
two years. The Mineola cliques that we, as freshmen and sophomores and
non-varsity athletes were excluded from had been left behind.
Mineola had been a little
frightening. I remember, I think it was the Shaw brothers, hanging a
screaming Billy Grueneveld by his feet out the third floor window above the
principal’s office. Or maybe it was Billy and someone else hanging one of the
Shaws [they became policemen and Old Westbury real estate millionaires]. We
heard that the principal, Mr. Sloat (wasn’t that a great name for that little
man who looked like a mole?) looked out his window to see the screaming
Grueneveld. Remember social studies teacher Mr. Plitt, who left springtimes
to play baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals and marry Miss New York State,
Diana Deutsch. Remember Diana Deutsch! Remember "hoods?" Like the
skinny guy with the greasy hair who only wore black and stood outside Mr.
Plitt’s home room every morning with his girlfriend, a platinum blonde who
stood there with him with her hand in his pants pocket. [I always assumed she
was his girlfriend. They never spoke. She might just have been someone with a
cold hand.]
I had tried out for the
Mineola basketball team and was cut the first day, before they had cuts. But
at Wheatley, they needed bodies on the teams. If you weren’t athletic and
couldn’t make the popular football, basketball and baseball teams, there were
soccer, wrestling, and track. I became an "athlete." Once, I was
the only member of the wrestling team who didn’t get pinned. [That memory
must be wrong, because the team had Lance Lessler and Mike Stapleton, who
were champions.]
When Wheatley started, we
didn’t have a mascot or a team name. Bruce Gherke, the Mineola gym teacher,
was the first person I heard say, "Wheatley Wildcats." I proposed
it for the mascot referendum. It was a natural. Romuold
Lanthier, the father of Tracey, Toni and Tina of succeeding
classes, had a stuffed wildcat that Mrs. Lanthier was probably overjoyed to
get out of their living room. It took a place of honor in Mr. Davis’ office.
Remember Mr. Davis? Every time Dr. Norman Boyan, the Wheatley Principal,
introduced him, he told of Mr. Davis in his first interview making it
understood that, in all his jobs around the gym, he considered himself
primarily as a teacher. And Mr. Lawson, the ex-Marine coach. When I told him
I thought I had broken my arm pole vaulting, he told me to run a couple of
laps and go take a shower. He signed my cast the next day.
Remember Dr. Boyan? Dr.
Boyan appeared at the 50th All-Classes Wheatley Reunion in October on film.
Mr. Wathey was there in the flesh looking great. I remember suggesting to Dr.
Boyan that they offer us some college-level courses. His answer was that I was
having enough trouble with high school-level classes. What a monumental job
it must have been to create a high school for 400 students from scratch.
Mr. Wathey will always have a warm spot in my memories. He was
principal of North Side when I transferred from public school in Jamaica,
Queens, in the 6th grade. The teachers in NYC had been so strict that if you
were going to do something like sharpen chalk in the pencil sharpener, you
had to be really careful not to be detected. We even had to wear a tie every
day. The kids in Mrs. Batchelder’s class laughed at me when I wore a tie my
first day. They were actually wearing dungarees, and there were classes in art
and music, and gym was outside on grass. I decided that school in East
Williston was like country club membership [the beginning of a sweet academic
decline. Isn’t it great that you can blame a poor academic record on
dungarees and publish it to the world?]
I don’t remember what it
was I did that so outraged Mr. Ingrassia, the North Side shop teacher, that
made him decree that I would not be allowed on the class trip to Rye Beach.
I’m sure I was completely innocent. It devastated me to be banished from the trip.
Mr. Wathey kindly overruled Mr. Ingrassia and let me go to Rye Beach, where I
bought a bottle of disappearing ink and a squirting pen (literally a
"fountain" pen). Mrs. Batchelder was a pretty good sport when I
created a big black spot on her white blouse. Jeanne Pretsch (1958)
said that it wasn’t really disappearing ink, and I had ruined her best
blouse. Yeah–sure, she would wear her best blouse to Rye beach. I probably
did her a favor.
Mrs. Batchelder lived in
East Williston and rode her bike to school. She looked just like the witch in
the Wizard of Oz, pedaling through the village. I remember her teaching us
things like how to jump off the window sill and that it was time to start using
deodorant. Puberty was on the threshold. She punctuated its arrival with a
comment one warm spring day that she was only wearing three things and her
shoes were two of them. And then she would sit on a tall stool in front of
the class or bend over to pick something up.
Mrs. Batchelder taught us
that you can remember that "dessert" has 2 s’s because it has lots
of sugar. I pointed out that deserts have lots of sand. I still remember the
look she gave me. Or the time I asked her how to spell a word. She told me to
look it up in the dictionary. I asked how you can look a word up if you don’t
know how to spell it.
Then there was the time when a bunch of us 6th grade boys were caught with
pictures of women who had breasts, 35 mm contact print size – the pictures,
not the breasts. We were all sent to Mr. Wathey: Images of expulsion,
"permanent record," shame, mortal sin, hell, parents hearing about
it, no Rye Beach. Mr. Wathey gave us all a stern lecture. That was the end of
it. No one went on to become a rapist, child molester, Governor or other type
of sex criminal -- to my knowledge, any way. It’s too bad that decent and
sane man, Mr. Wathey, didn’t get to be President of the United States.
Wasn’t it Mrs. Smiley who
was the principal when they consolidated kids from East Williston and Roslyn
Heights for 7th grade? Hank Tredwell, Slade Walter and I liked to spend hours
on our bikes, sometimes trying to get lost. One day we stopped outside the
butcher shop at the Albertson Long Island Rail Road Station. There was a pile
of chicken feet in the showcase. I remembered, as a child, being given a
chicken’s foot by a kindly butcher. A plot was hatched.
Hank, Slade and I got to
school about a half hour before the school day started. We divided up 40 or
50 chicken feet the butcher had given us and set about seeding the 7th grade
wing of the Willets Road School. Then, as the school day started, our work done,
we sat back and enjoyed the pandemonium. Boys chased girls with chicken feet.
Girls cooperated by screaming and running down the hall. It was so delicious.
I seem to remember Mr. Visco and Mr. Goldwasser trying
to keep from laughing. Then, everyone was herded into home rooms. Laurel
Davis (1958) sat at the desk next to mine and opened the top
to reveal a chicken leg. Fainting or at least a shriek would have been a nice
conclusion to the adventure. She just picked it up–a girl touching a chicken
leg with her bare fingers -- and dropped it on my desk. My desk! Why did she
drop it on my desk?
It looked like everything
was over. Mrs. Kurtz started doing her teaching thing. Then, she
opened her desk drawer, the third one down on the left where she kept blank
sheets of paper. She looked up and scanned the class: no reaction. She said,
"All right. Whoever put this in my desk, come here and take it
out." This time I really wasn’t guilty. Hank Tredwell sat in front of
me. I waited, watching his inert back as the tension mounted. Finally, I
couldn’t wait any longer to get back to diagraming sentences. I got up and
retrieved the offending chicken leg.
Back to North Side for
8th Grade. Mr. Neidich taught English. More important, he had
been a decoder in the Korean war and could break any code an 8th grader could
devise. Miss Kreppein taught social studies. She was probably
the nicest teacher I had. I remember hearing that she got married and not
wanting to call her by her new name.
I told Mr. Gorman,
our Wheatley guidance counselor, that I wanted to go to Princeton. He said
that the only way I could get in with my grades was if I was president of the
student council. Wheatley didn’t have a student council, so I suggested that
we form one. I met with the Mineola student council and got each Wheatley
home room to appoint one representative. Then, with the structure in place
the electoral college, as it were, of home room representatives elected me. I
never did apply to Princeton. The application was too long. But I had
discovered politics. I decided that I wanted to get elected to something in
the real world. On the way to politics as a career, I would become a trial
lawyer and learn how to speak in public.
About a year ago, Charlie
Schmid (1958) and I had dinner. He is the executive secretary
of the acoustical engineering society and commutes between Seattle and New
York and most other countries of the world at some time or another. We
reminisced about those two years at Wheatley– each of us having different
vivid memories. We went to a lot of theater: "Inherit the Wind,"
"My Fair Lady," "West Side Story." We wondered who it was
that sparked that interest. I remembered sitting next to Doug Kull
(1958) at "My Fair Lady." He had bought a big
yellow box of Mason’s Dots, and each time he wanted one, he had to invert the
box and let the Dots rattle down into his hand. When he was at
full-inversion, a woman sitting in front of him turned around and ordered him
to stop making that noise. He froze. With the open box tipped into his hand.
Sweat dotted his brow. He was paralyzed. It had taken months to get tickets.
Finally, he couldn’t wait any longer. The dots in his hand were beginning to
melt. He gently tipped the box up to home position. The Dots clattered back
with a deafening sound, drowning out Julie Andrews and almost stopping
the show. The woman in front turned around and slugged Doug.
Once Doug and I decided
to see an opera. We chose a Saturday afternoon performance of Pelleas and
Melisande by Debussy. Little did we suspect that it was probably the most
boring opera in the lexicon. We bought tickets at the door and went around to
the standing room entrance at the back of the old Met. At about 1:50, the
doors opened and the crowd crammed into the old wire cage elevators. As our
elevator ascended, a woman behind us mooed. When we emerged in the
stratosphere, the mooer and the other experienced opera goers ran to the
spots at the back of the theater. Doug and I ambled to comfortable looking
open spaces in the front. Then we learned that the closer to the stage, the
less you could see. Most of the time as Pelleas and Melisande were being totally
inactive on the stage, we were only able to see about 15% of what they
weren’t doing. I guess we started with the premise that opera was painful and
we weren’t disappointed. I married a singer, and opera has since become a
significant part of my life. I still don’t like P&M.
Charlie Schmid remembered Miss Bodnar’s production of a play about
five or six sailors trapped in a submarine. She picked Don Kleban,
Steve Perlin, Mike Stapleton (all 1958) and others we
couldn’t remember to play the sailors. It was a courageous teaching
adventure. Then, there was Mr. Storm’s handwritten play with
parts drawn for the types he expected to act it. I played the master of
ceremonies. I envied the people in his English classes.
We agreed that Mr. Loring
was a wonderful teacher. Charlie said Mr. Loring had turned down a job
teaching in a college to work at Wheatley. Mr. Loring told us that he was
descended from a revolutionary war soldier who fought at the battle of Bunker
Hill. He came from Massachusetts, so it must be so–we third generation
children of the melting pot didn’t question it. Then, as we were studying the
Lewis and Clark Expedition. Mr. Loring said, "Bruce, you’re descended
from Meriwether Clark, aren’t you?" I replied that he must be kidding,
my grandfather didn’t speak English. Mr. Loring said that I might as well
claim it. Nobody will be able to prove otherwise. [Editor’s Note - Meriwether
Lewis and William Clark led the “Lewis and Clark Expedition,” so Bruce could
not have been descended from “Meriwether Clark.”]
I had a profound
experience in Mr. Loring’s class that I didn’t understand until years later.
The class was discussing the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings,
which I think were then going on. I asked Mr. Loring why people were upset if
the committee was getting rid of communists. A look of fear flashed across
Mr. Loring’s face. He didn’t answer my question.
We of the Class of 1958
played a significant role in setting policies of the Wheatley School that are
probably still in effect. Driver’s Ed is an example. Reese Buick had donated
a red and white Buick to the school for Driver’s Ed. I had applied for a learner’s
permit at the first strike of the clock on my 16th birthday, and I was
licensed after only two driving tests–teenager liberation, adulthood, no more
having my mother drive me on dates. [I can still feel the humiliation.] I
didn’t tell my parents that a junior license could not be used at night, but
that’s another story. With Driver’s Ed, you could drive legally anytime and
anywhere at age 17. I enrolled in Mr. Saunders’ class. On the first
day, we were driving around the south parking lot when Mr.
Saunders had to go to the bathroom. As I had a license, he
put me in charge and said to keep going around the little island in front of
the school. I don’t remember who was driving, but as soon as he was out of
sight, we left the parking lot and drove to the lot by the gym. We were
seeing how fast the Buick could corner and throwing girls’ purses, books,
chickens, stray cats out the window when Mr. Saunders returned. He said he
would never, ever, ever again leave the students in charge of the Driver’s Ed
car.
Then there was the
incident of Mr. Maskin’s car getting wrecked. I wasn’t there and only have
hearsay evidence of the incident–something to do with the son of the head of
the Motor Vehicle Bureau. Maybe that person could share that incident with
us, whoever he was. [Hint: his initials are "Dick Benfield."] The
statute of limitations has expired.
In choosing a college, I
was influenced as much by the Horatio Alger and Hardy Boys novels I had read
as by the scant advice from Mr. Gorman. I wanted a school with a beautiful
campus, maybe a lake, fraternities to join, fraternity brothers who would become
friends for life. Football games, party weekends, hip flasks and beautiful
coeds visiting from Vassar. I was accepted to Colgate, which promised all of
those things. Then a funny thing happened – school became interesting. I was
taking courses in art, politics, economics, psychology, Russian . . . I felt
almost guilty not having to take math.
I had started college as
a serious, practicing Roman Catholic. The parish priest in Williston Park
warned that if I went to a secular college, I would lose my faith. He was
right. As freshmen, we had to take a two semester course in philosophy and
religion. I was lucky to be assigned to Jerry Balmuth,
a great teacher. In my senior year at a fraternity dinner, I was waiting a
table for Professor Balmuth and Albert Parry, the head of the
Russian Department. Dr. Parry introduced me to Prof. Balmuth as "Bruce, a
good Catholic." Prof. Balmuth said, "He was until he took my
course."
Sputnik had flown our
senior year at Wheatley. Enrollment in Russian 101 at Colgate went from 6 or
7 the prior year to over 70, I among them. I took the first three years of
Russian language in two years and heard that the Russians were allowing a few
Americans into their country. I applied and was accepted to the Lisle
Fellowship group spending the summer of 1960 in the Soviet Union. They
allowed sixty American students in. We went to all the major cities and
stayed in student dormitories and met with Russian students. When it wasn’t
schools, we toured factories. In Moscow, we attended the Bolshoi Opera. In
Tbilisi, we saw the Georgian State Ballet dance Otello, and then went to a
ballet company party afterwards. I danced the Lindy with one of the ballet dancers
and tried unsuccessfully to pick her up.
In Leningrad, I was
getting bored with factories and wanted to experience the Soviet justice
system. Without telling anyone, I left the group and approached a policeman
directing traffic. I asked where the nearest court was. He told me which bus
to take and then to look for the police station. The court was upstairs from
the police station. I found the police station and asked for the court. The
officer at the door pointed me upstairs. I asked a court clerk if I could
watch. She said I could. I found the courtroom, which was empty. I took a
couple of pictures and then sat down and waited. The room filled and a trial
started. I drew a diagram of the courtroom and was taking notes and trying to
figure what the trial was about and maybe dozing a little when the state’s
attorney stood up, stopped the trial and asked who that was who was taking
notes. A man behind me stood up and was told to sit down. It was I the
state’s attorney wanted to know about. I stood up and said I was an exchange
student. They ordered me to come forward and take the witness stand. I told
them again that I was an exchange student and was from America. It was if I
had jolted them with a bolt of lightning. The judge (an older woman who had
survived the Stalin era) was visibly terrified. The trial was stopped and we
all went back into the robing room where the judge started frantically making
phone calls. My notebook was confiscated. After a while two men came in and
told me to come with them. They didn’t say anything more. I was relieved when
they dropped me off at my hotel. The next day I got my notes back with a
tongue lashing from our guide for going off without permission. At this time
things were pretty tense between the two countries. The trial of Francis Gary
Powers was going on and was broadcast everywhere. His crumpled U-2 spy plane
was on display in one of the parks. One of the students in the exchange was
arrested for giving out Bibles and selling on the black market. (We all sold
on the black market. I was sorry I didn’t have more American dollars which on
the street fetched about 10 times the official exchange rate.)
Back at college, I was
accepted to the Colgate Washington Study Group–a semester in DC with a
professor and nine other students. We got to meet and interview people like
Congressman Gerald Ford, Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Senator William
Proxmire. We went to a Dean Rusk press conference. I
spent a couple of weeks in Congressman Steven Derounian’s office. His
secretary, who ran his office and probably told him how to vote, was Tecla
Bomhard, the aunt of our Northside classmate, Harold Barnes. We met James
Reston, who asked about our program and then said, "It
sounds like a ball." We had been found out. In retrospect, I didn’t
realize it then, but that semester was the beginning of my disaffection with
politics.
After college, I spent
the three most miserable years of my academic life at Columbia Law School. It
was education by intimidation and humiliation. Despite the pain, I will ever
be grateful to Columbia for the legal education it crammed down my throat.
The best part of Columbia was meeting Judy Hutchinson, a Sarah Lawrence senior
and opera singer, on a blind date to the Colgate-Columbia football game. We
discovered that neither of us cared for football and we spent most of the
game walking along the river and talking. I asked her to marry me that night.
Forty-three years, 3 children, six grandchildren and multiple incarnations
later, I am now married to and still in love with Judith
Hutchinson Clark, author. [No, she didn’t write this.]
As law school graduation
approached, I turned down job offers to become a real estate or trusts and
estates attorney to work for George Washington Herz, one of
the great trial lawyers of the last century. He paid me $75 a week, and when
I told him I wanted to try cases, he said that clients didn’t come to his
office to have me represent them, but he would not object if I found my own
clients. On the day I got my license to practice law, I volunteered at the
Samaritan Halfway House, an outpatient rehab facility for drug addicts. I
went there a few nights a week to "counsel" their clients, many of
whom were older and a lot more street-smart than I. Within a few weeks, I was
appearing in criminal court. I was my own little Legal Aid Society, working
for fees of $50, $75 or nothing. As my practice grew, I went on a per diem
arrangement with Herz. A few months later, Herz fired me, after I had a
serious disagreement with his junior partner. I went to another firm and was
fired by them after a couple of months. Something told me it was time to open
my own office.
In the beginning, I took
just about every type of matter, telling everybody I met anywhere that I was
a trial lawyer. As soon as I could, I applied to become one of the lawyers
they assigned to represent criminal defendants in the federal court. Within a
week, I was appointed to represent the mastermind of the largest bank robbery
ever in the Eastern District of New York– the reason I was appointed being
that I was, by definition, the least experienced attorney in the entire
federal system. I learned that my client had charges pending in other
jurisdictions for kidnaping and attempted murder – but that, too, is another
story.
The Vietnam War was on,
and Judith and I got active in the anti-war movement. I represented several
draft resisters and dessserters (Mrs. Batchelder, help me, wherever you are.)
About that time, I
started attending meetings of the local Democratic club. The meetings were
sooooo deadly. The District Leader would get up and say, "We are all
going to support Arthur." No reason to support Arthur, like even though
he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, he is able to chew gum. The
implication was that now it is Arthur’s turn; when it is your turn, we will
support you–end of discussion. I wasn’t going to have the politician’s
prerequisite military career if I could help it, and I couldn’t stand what I
had seen of what politics involved, so I readjusted my goals.
After a few years of a
practice that included more and more trials (I represented defendants in four
murder cases and several other bank robbers), I started to handle medical
malpractice cases; first representing doctors who were being sued and
gradually taking patients’ cases. In the 1970's, there were only two or three
law firms in the New York area who took malpractice cases. The cases were so
hard for attorneys, who had to learn a different area of medicine for each
case, that lawyers were eager to refer the cases out. I loved it. It
gradually has become the entirety of my practice.
One of those firms that
did handle malpractice cases invited me to try some of their cases. I
accepted and then decided that I wanted some more preparation. I started by
going to the NYC Medical Examiner’s office and watching autopsies so that I
would be confident about the anatomy. Then, I found a seminar on trial
practice that was a hands-on course taught by experienced trial lawyers and a
few judges. It cost more than I wanted to spend, so I volunteered to be one
of their teachers. I was accepted and began a sub-career teaching trial
advocacy seminars. Eventually, I originated a course at Hofstra Law School in
"Advanced Trial Advocacy: The Expert Witness," and then another on,
"The Jury." I teach Wednesday nights throughout the school year.
I’m not very good at intimidation and humiliation, and I tend to give good
grades.
My highpoint as a trial
lawyer, so far, has been representing the estate of Andy Warhol in the
lawsuit that arose from his death following a gall bladder operation. The
lawsuit had been handled from its inception by a firm that had a practice
that was primarily theatrical. They had never represented a client in a
medical case. As the trial date approached, they realized that they were in
totally uncharted territory. They asked around and found me. As I got into
the preparation, I began to suspect some of the witnesses. The medical
examiner who did the autopsy had missed some obvious abnormalities and was
very uncooperative when I attempted to speak with her. I found that the
defendant hospital had sent an ‘observer’ to the autopsy. One of the two main
medical witnesses for the theatrical lawyers had volunteered to help against
the defendant surgeon and hospital. That never happens. Doctors don’t
volunteer to testify against other doctors. I found out that our witness had
done his fellowship at the defendant hospital and had a very close lady
friend who was still an attending physician there. Another witness, the
world’s greatest expert on critical care, considered it below his dignity to
say that another physician had made an error. (It is an absolute requirement
in medical malpractice cases that a doctor testify that there was medical
negligence that injured the patient.) I fought with the witnesses and I
fought the senior partner in the theatrical firm. But lawsuits are like what
they say about making sausages: you don’t want to see the process, it’s the
end result that counts. We ended up settling the case toward the end of the
trial for a very large amount of money, which everyone involved has been
charged to keep secret.
Prior to my involvement
in the Warhol case, I had written a novel. It was accepted by an agent right
after the first draft. She found a publisher whose editor-in-chief started
working on it. Then we had a dispute and severed all relations. I was not
able to get another agent or publisher to take the book. But I found that I
enjoyed writing. In the Warhol case, there were things that I had suspected,
but that I would never be able to prove. I could, however, write about what
happened, as fiction, which I did. I found an agent who submitted the Warhol
book to John Grisham’s publisher. After it was rejected, the agent retired
from the agent business. I found another agent who did a lot of really good
editorial work on the book and then died before she could submit it: end of
my publishing career. But I do enjoy writing and have three other novels in
various stages of completion.
I am still actively
managing an office full of cases and trying several cases a year. I’m having
too much fun to retire.
Robert Holley (1958) Writes - “As to remembrances of dear Mineola, one of the funniest
moments I recall in high school was the day that the study hall teacher had
his back turned to all the ‘studiers.’ He was busy writing on the blackboards
that went the whole length of this very long room. As a change of pace from
the normal rubber band-launched paper clip fusillade one had to endure, the
‘fad de jour’ was water pistols, and as this poor man (who, as I recall, did
not see very well) went scribbling on, several dozen pistols were drawn, and
they started to wet down the back of his suit jacket.
It got totally soaked.
Everyone was cracking up and snickering; they kept firing and he was still
scribbling. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, one of the
misdirected pistols wet the board right by his chalk. He whirled around so
fast, and he was so wet that he practically drowned a few girls nearby.
I have this weird thing for remembering faces… I found him right away in the
Mineola yearbook. It was a math teacher… Mr. Wanich.
Art Engoron (1967) Writes
- Amazing! Thanks, Bob. You are correct: Bruce was as good at telling stories
as he was at practicing law.
1961 - Carol Jalonack Blum, Tim
Jerome and “Good News.”
Carol Writes - “I see
that my classmate Tim Jerome found the program for ‘Good News. Below is a
photo taken during a performance. Dr. Wills (at the piano) wanted help with
the orchestra. My mother is right behind him, playing her violin.
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Who can identify
themselves?”
1961 - Michelle “Mickey” Gordon -
Deceased
Mickey died on December
8, 2024. She lived in Colorado and raised Jacob 🐑 Sheep.
1973 - Susan Davis Pereira -
Successful Concert
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Dear friends and fans of
Sabor Brasil,
Thank
you so much for coming to our recent Jazz Forum gig!
The house was packed, and we
couldn't have asked for a warmer or more enthusiastic audience. (Extra
gratitude to those of you who stayed for two sets!)
We deeply appreciate your support
and look forward to playing for you again soon.
In
the meantime, keep the samba vibes going, and have a fantastic summer!
Um grande abraço,
Susan
Pereira and Sabor Brasil
Photo credit: Deborah
Davis (edited by S. Pereira)
Edit profile Unsubscribe View in browser
1989 - Peter Sultan - Two
Additional Photographs and Another Obituary
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A beloved local
surgeon died Sunday morning after collapsing during the Jamesport Triathlon.
Dr. Peter Sultan, an
orthopedic surgeon at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead for 20 years,
was widely known in the community for his skill in his specialty of hip and
knee replacement, his affable nature and his talent as an accomplished
pianist.
Sultan’s sudden death at
age 54 shocked friends and colleagues and left the hospital community
reeling. He was an athlete who walked many miles daily, and an avid cyclist
who also enjoyed running and snowboarding, friends said. Sultan competed
frequently in the Jamesport Marathon, an annual event sponsored by Peconic
Bay Medical Center.
“It’s so strange that
this happened, because he certainly trained, but yet…” fellow surgeon and
friend Dr. Agostino Cervone said in a phone interview today.
Andrew Mitchell, former
president and CEO at Peconic Bay and a close friend of Sultan, said he was
“just devastated” by the news. “He was my first real recruit at the
hospital,” Mitchell said.
Sultan earned a
bachelor’s degree in biology, magna cum laude with highest honor, from
Harvard University and a doctor of medicine degree from Weill Medical College
of Cornell University. He then studied business administration and management
at the Wharton School before attending Harvard Medical School, where he
completed a fellowship in adult reconstructive surgery at Massachusetts
General Hospital.
“Peter was one of Long
Island’s top orthopedic surgeons,” Mitchell said. “He truly cared about his
patients, the East End communities where he lived, and the continued
advancement of PBMC into a highly regarded regional medical center.”
PBMC Executive Director
Amy Loeb, who succeeded Mitchell in the top leadership post at the hospital
after he retired in 2022, said Sultan, as the orthopedic surgery service’s
first recruit, was key to the hospital’s transformation.
“Orthopedics really is
the service that changed the hospital,” Loeb said. “He took a chance on us as
a hospital and as a community and really built the hospital, and started to
turn the reputation of the hospital around.”
“Patient by patient, he
changed lives. Thanks to his joint replacement practice, thousands of people
are able to move and walk and dance and enjoy their families,” Loeb said.
“He was so committed to
his practice, to his patients, to the hospital — just an all around great
guy,” she said.
Cervone said Sultan had a
reputation for being very conservative with managing patients’ conditions,
opting for nonsurgical treatment wherever possible. Other physicians — and
their patients — appreciated that, Cervone said.
“He was very thorough.
Patients liked him. He got great results and was very knowledgeable. He was
always on top of everything,” Cervone said. “He enjoyed his work, he enjoyed
his family, he enjoyed his life.”
Sultan, a Westhampton
resident, was the devoted father of two teenage children, Elizabeth and
William. “They were the world to him,” Cervone said.
Lisa Hubbard,
administrative director of orthopedic services at Peconic Bay, worked closely
with Sultan; they both started at the hospital in the fall of 2005. At first
he was an introvert, she recalled. “He was very shy.” As he matured and got
more comfortable in his new hospital, he became more outgoing, she said.
“Everyone loved Dr.
Sultan,” she said. “Everyone is reeling from this loss.”
She said the hospital,
which is usually bustling, has been extraordinarily quiet the past two days.
The atmosphere there is “solemn.” she said. “I’ve never seen it like this
before.”
Loeb said Sultan’s loss
“leaves a big hole we all need to just reconcile.” Right now, everyone is
stunned and still trying to process what’s happened. “It’s so fresh,” she
said.
Loeb said she visited the
unit where he worked, the OR and his practice team, who worked with him every
day.
“They are so focused on
making sure their patients are taken care of,” said Loeb. “We offered to have
other staff make those calls, but they wanted to make the calls themselves,
because ‘They’re our patients,’ they said. It speaks to the culture of Dr. Sultan’s
office and who he was.”
Those phone calls have
been emotional, Hubbard said, often ending with both patients and staff
members crying.
“He loved his patients
and they loved him,” she said.
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As masterful as Sultan
was with his hands in the operating room, he was even more so on the piano
keyboard, said his friend and coworker Jerome Foster Lewis, a vocalist who
would often team up with Sultan for impromptu concerts in the hospital lobby,
which is outfitted with a grand piano donated by a benefactor. Sultan was not
only a self-taught pianist but he also played by ear — he didn’t read music,
Lewis said. He learned new pieces quickly and had an extensive repertoire
committed to memory.
“He was a genius — a
brilliant, brilliant human being,” Lewis said.
Sultan would go down to
the lobby, dressed in scrubs, and play a little concert in between surgeries,
he said. The performances surprised and delighted patients and visitors and
soothed the nerves of family members waiting to see their loved ones after procedures.
“The unexpected concerts
gave them the uplift they needed,” said Lewis, a patient experience
specialist at PBMC. People really appreciated it, he said. “It was a joy for
us, too. It was uplifting and gave us the strength we needed,” he said. “He
would always say, ‘Medicine cures the body, but music cures the soul.’”
“He told me to never give
up on my music — ‘That’s what you are meant to do,’ he told me. ‘It’s the
core of who you are.’ It was the core of who he was, too,” Lewis said.
“People saw the
analytical side of him. I got to see the artist. It was a side of him I’m so
grateful I got to experience,” Lewis said. “The relationship will always be
sacred to me.”
Sultan was always
enthusiastic about sharing his music with others. He kept a keyboard in his
office and practiced every chance he got.
“It’s so sad, somebody so
vital and in a really good place in his life and looking forward to so many
things with his kids, with his career…” Hubbard said. ”He was living and
loving life.”
Loeb said the deep grief
everyone feels and the way people are supporting each other says a lot about
the hospital and the people who work there.
“That doesn’t happen
everywhere. Not every place is like a family. To look around and see the love
that we have here, it’s really special.”
1961 (Camille Napoli Cannizzo - “I love all the photos in the Newsletter!! 😊😊😊”
Carol McDowell Shaheen - “The Newsletter is fabulous.”
2003 (Scott Fink) - "Thank you for your wonderful Newsletter."
In the first 24 or so
hours after publication, Wheatley Alumni Newsletter # 216 was viewed 4,403
times and was liked three times. In all, 4,772 email addresses received
Newsletter # 216.
Thanks to our fabulous
Webmaster, Keith Aufhauser (Class of 1963), you can regale
yourself with the first 216 Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletters
(and much other Wheatley data and arcana) at
The Wheatley School Alumni Association Website
Also thanks to Keith is
our search engine, prominently displayed on our home page: type in a word or
phrase and, wow!, you’ll find every place it exists in all previous
Newsletters and other on-site material.
I edit all submissions,
even material in quotes, for clarity and concision, without any indication
thereof. I cannot and do not vouch for the accuracy of what people tell me,
as TWSAA does not have a fact-checking department.
We welcome any and all
text and photos relevant to The Wheatley School, 11 Bacon Road, Old Westbury,
NY 11568, and the people who administered, taught, worked, and/or studied
there. Art Engoron, Class of 1967
That’s it for The Wheatley School
Alumni Association Newsletter # 217. Please send me your autobiography before
someone else sends me your obituary.
Art
Arthur Fredericks Engoron, Class of 1967
