The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 218
Welcome to The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 218. Wheatley School Alumni Luncheon Possibilities - 10/3/2025 - 1:00-4:00Art Engoron (1967) Writes - Several people suggested that we consider various possible venues. I have narrowed the field to the following five establishments, based primarily on locations and accessibility: The Elgin – 64 W. 48th St. (6th Ave.) – American food. The Smith Lincoln Center – 1900 Broadway (63rd St.) – American food. Rosy O’Grady’s – 148 W. 51st Street (7th Ave.) - Irish food. Leonetta – 181 Lexington Ave. (31st St.) – Mediterranean food. Leon’s – 817 Broadway (12th St.) - Italian food. If anybody has views, positive, negative, or indifferent, on any or all of these places, please let me know ASAP. Late nominations will be considered only if there’s a particularly strong candidate, which must be in or near midtown Manhattan and must be accessible, including an accessible bathroom stall(s). FacultyIn his submission to the Class of 1958's 50th Reunion Blog, Bruce Clark wrote that Charlie Schmid said that Mr. Loring had turned down a college position to teach at Wheatley. I can attest to that. When I was a freshman at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), I had a conversation with the head of the History Dept. When he learned where I had gone to high school, he mentioned Mr. Loring and said that the History Department had tried to get Mr. Loring to move to Pittsburgh to teach at Tech., but that Mr. Loring had turned them down. Graduates1958 - Bruce Clark - Deceased Bruce Clark Memorial Get-Together - Tuesday, July 29, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, at the Sands Point Preserve, 127 Middleneck Rd., Sands Point, NY 11050.Rhoda Kalkin Schneider (1961) Writes - “Sorry to read about my classmate, Michelle ‘Mickey’ Gordon, and Bruce Clark, whom I knew, but not well. Sad that we are all getting to the point where we do not know who the next obituary will be about. I read Bruce’s long but very interesting article from April 2008, and it certainly brought back memories, as my sister Arline was in that class. Jane Madison (1970) Writes - “I thoroughly enjoyed the writings of Bruce Clark (1958). I found myself laughing out loud in many places.” Bill Meyn (1974) Writes - “I never knew Bruce Clark (1958), but, still, I mourn the passing of such a skilled raconteur. Thank you for sharing his stories.” 1960 - Edward Pachtman - Deceased Ken Martin (1960) Writes - “Hi Art, Ed Pachtman (1960) passed away July 4th, 2025, at his home in Lake Worth, FL. His wife, Toni Barckman Pachtman (1960), and Ed were high school sweethearts at Wheatley, making their relationship span over 66 years. Great people, and both were, to use the current term,”influencers" in the Class of 1960. I wrote a piece - see below - about attending a Shiva in the Pachtman’s home a few weeks back and sent it to the group of classmates who attend the mini-reunions that my class holds annually. I had never attended a shiva before, so I looked up on the net the protocols involved. Google suggested dressing business casual, which I did. I was overdressed, but it mattered little to me, as my main purpose was simply to show my respect for Ed and to pay my condolences to his wife and fellow classmate, Toni. There was another reason for my trip, which was to reconnect with Ed and Toni's two grandsons, whom I met on a trip to Israel six years ago. The two left an indelible impression on me then, and when their mother confirmed their attendance, I simply had to make the trip. I arrived a little after three. There was a small group of people standing and sitting around. Toni’s house was incredible. I’m not sure what Toni did career-wise, but she should have been an interior decorator! It was one of the most tastefully decorated homes I have ever been in. Driving home, I commented to myself - I must take my wife Cheryle down so that she could experience it. But on second thought, that decision could cost me a ton of money. Toni, I do hope we can visit you in the future - you and Cheryle are birds of a feather when it comes to decorating! Ed and Toni raised two lovely daughters - Lisa and Cori. Cori is a doctor in the East Bay section of San Francisco. Lisa is in business and lives in New Jersey, where the Pachtmans raised their family. Lisa is also the mother of two sons, Ari and Noah, who are the young men I met in Tel Aviv a number of years back. Below is a photo of their family, in which they were gracious enough to let me participate. Toni has a great dog - a big white poodle who is not in the photo.
From right to left: Cori, Lisa, Toni. Ken, Noah (I think) and Ari. By the way, Toni looked sensational - lithe and spry, and I’m sure that her dedication to sports and physical fitness, beginning at Wheatley and lasting her lifetime, has contributed to her health and good looks. I had a long conversation with both Ari and Noah. They still live in Israel. My first meeting with them was initiated by me after Ed said they had intended to make Aliyah and were in the Israeli Defense Forces. Prior to meeting them, I had been contemplating becoming a Zionist, which I subsequently became. What outstanding young men - focused, intelligent, friendly, patriotic, principled, and, I might add, handsome as well (the girls must swoon when these two are in the room!). They both have degrees and work in Israel. They plan to stay there for the time being, and I suspect they could spend the rest of their lives there, as they are quite content with the lifestyle.
Lisa and Cori, Toni and Ed’s daughters, sent an email with the following request enclosed: Donations can be made to the Neuroendocrine Research Tumor Foundation or any Jewish charity of your choice. Toni-stay strong, and Ed, may we meet again. VQ Ken 1966 - Ned Lagin - Playing a Keyboard With the Grateful Dead - March 23, 1975
Clockwise from far Left - Bob Weir (guitar); Ned Lagin (Wheatley 1966) (keyboard); Jerry Garcia (guitar); Phil Lesh (bass); Keith Godchaux (keyboard) 1967 - Mitchell Stephens - On the Unpredictability of Life (and his favorite shirt) Mitch Writes - “Life throws curves—at least it does to me. Sometimes large curves. I’m going to focus here on a few small ones. I assume people who meticulously plan are thrown off-balance by such little curves less often than I am, though I doubt it is possible to subtract all the unpredictability from life. I do not meticulously plan. That is not because I get a thrill out of being surprised. It is because I seem to be able to handle being surprised, and because I’m usually too lazy for meticulous planning. The particular lesson on the unpredictability of life I want to share here is based on a few very small surprises that presented themselves while my wife and I were visiting the Seychelles Islands. We were there because at some point we realized that going back to New York City for a fortnight in between an extended sojourn in Paris and a safari in Kenya made less sense even than most of our other travel decisions. So we spent a couple of quite pleasant weeks on two of the Seychelles Islands—the largest one, Mahé, and La Digue, a bicycle-only island with truly spectacular beaches. No curves there: the two of us having enjoyed an idyll on a couple of tropical islands was entirely predictable. We were in the departure side of the airport on Mahé when the first two events I could not have predicted would happen happened. We were looking, as we often are, to charge our phones, which being a bit long in the tooth, are not adept at holding charges. We had a two-part nighttime flight ahead of us: Mahé to Addis Ababa to Nairobi. And my battery, since we had spent the day tootling around, reported only 7 percent. I couldn’t find an electric outlet anywhere around the gate at which we were waiting, so, in some desperation, I walked into a clothing store near the gate and asked if they knew of any places to plug in. Amazingly, the woman who ran the store invited me to plug my phone into an outlet she found somewhere in the middle of the floor of her store. It seemed an imposition. But she insisted she did not mind. That I would not have predicted. That was the first surprise—a pleasant one. Touched by her generosity and without her applying any pressure whatsoever, I tried to find something to buy in her store and finally settled on a black-on-white Hawaiian shirt, which seemed to fit and look okay.
The second surprise, an unpleasant one, arrived when, about an hour later I collected my phone, boarded the plane and turned the phone on. It was now only 4 percent charged. That outlet on the floor of the woman’s store not only hadn’t helped; it had cost me 3 percent. Life, as is its wont, had thrown me a Sandy-Koufax, 12-to-6 curve. Okay, I was being a bit overdramatic. But I did have a long night of flying ahead of me: with no movies or power outlets on this Kenya Airways plane, with a wife who rarely provides conversation on airplanes because she is usually asleep, and with essentially nothing to entertain me besides—yikes!—my own thoughts. I realized it was not the fault of that kind woman. I dutifully reminded myself that worse things have happened, though none came to mind at that particular moment. And I did manage to scrounge up 20 or 30 percentage points of charge later that night in the Addis Ababa airport. But I must admit I was no big fan of the unpredictability of life that night. My attitude toward life’s vagaries, however, improved considerably the next morning in Nairobi. I congratulated myself effusively for having brought along a bunch of the correct power adapters plus the wires to fit all of our many and varied devices. Indeed, by the next morning we were luxuriating in 90 to 100 percent charges on every one of our devices. And then the last and largest unpredictable occurrence arrived: I put on that new Hawaiian shirt purchased in the Mahé airport, stood in front of a mirror in our Nairobi hotel and . . . wow! My wife, no great fan of the whole Hawaiian-shirt thing, even said that it was “not bad.” It is now—entirely unpredictably—my favorite shirt. Surprise!
1969 and 1967 - Robin Brinn and Art Engoron
L-R - Robin Brinn (1969) and Art Engoron (1967) - Having Late Night Bites and Beverages at Rosa Mexicano, Columbus Avenue, New York City, July 22, 2025 1973 - Edward “Woodie” Ryder - Maternal Grandfather with Willie Sutton
L-R - Willie Sutton (famous, or infamous, bank robber and escape artist) and George W. Herz (Eddie Ryders’ Maternal Grandfather) Campaign posters for George W. Herz
1989 - Peter Sultan - An Appreciation Note - You probably have to sit through an advertisement and click “unmute,” and you might have to click the “play” arrow. Fan Mail1969 (Maddy Nathanson) - “A great read.” 1970 (Jane Madison) - “Thank you for another wonderful Newsletter.” 1979 (Randi Glasser Dawson) - “Thank you, thank you always for the Newsletters🙏.” 1994 (Erica Wolf) - “I love this Newsletter, so thank you!” The Official NoticesAll underlined text is a link-to-a-link or a link-to-an-email-address. Clicking anywhere on underlined text, and then clicking on the text that pops up, will get you to your on-line destination or will address an email.In the first 24 or so hours after publication, Wheatley Alumni Newsletter # 217 was viewed 3,969 times, was liked six times, and was commented on three times. In all, 4,771 email addresses received Newsletter # 216. The Usual Words of WisdomThanks to our fabulous Webmaster, Keith Aufhauser (Class of 1963), you can regale yourself with the first 217 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 ClosingThat’s it for The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 218. Please send me your autobiography before someone else sends me your obituary. Art
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Arthur Fredericks Engoron, Class of 1967