Why I’m My High School’s Scribe

      The Wheatley School—which, despite its highfalutin’ name, is a public school—opened its doors in September 1958 in Old Westbury, Long Island, New York. I graduated in 1967, along with 251 other baby boomers. My four brothers were also “Wheatley Wildcats.” In 1960, the oldest one brought home a copy of the school yearbook, the Aurora.

      I was hooked; I perused it endlessly; I wanted to get to know all of those people. I wanted to connect with them.

     And to a certain extent, I did.  What follows explains why some people call me “The Mayor of Wheatley.”

     In 1980 two friends and I organized our original class reunion (losing about $500 when the original venue went bankrupt). I organized a 25th, 30th, 40th and 50th mostly by myself. In or about 1985, a classmate asked me why I was doing this.

      I had to think for a few moments, “Why was I doing this?” Why does the hamster run on the wheel in its cage? I was mostly just doing it.

      But I came up with three reasons, which I think still hold, and which I will list in no particular order.

      I was doing it because being in contact with everyone and throwing parties is fun.

      I was doing it because people appreciated it, and I like making people happy.

      And I was doing it for “the glory.”  I couldn’t redo high school; and my college career was miserable; but I could become a somebody. I could stand out from the crowd.  People would know me, respect me, appreciate me, and maybe even envy me. Even after all these years, I still have difficulty defining “the glory,” but I still feel it. And to quote the Gershwin Brothers, “They can’t take that away from me.”

      At Wheatley, I was slightly built, academically good-but-not-great, hardly “Most Likely to Succeed,” and maybe deep down inside, I felt that I had something to prove.

      Fast forward a few years, and I realized that computers (word-processing and databases) and, later, the Internet, would allow me to expand my horizons to include all the school’s graduates (approximately 10,000 at last count). So, freed from photocopying, licking stamps and sealing envelopes, I now have a website, WWW.WHEATLEYALUMNI.ORG, and I publish a Substack newsletter (“The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter”) every week or two (currently, I am working on Issue #265). 

The tools have changed, but the goal of maintaining a connection has remained the same

      Part of the fun is that Wheatley was, and is, a great school; in 2003, Niche rated it “Number One in the Country!” Accordingly, its graduates have had thought-provoking lives and careers, and they contribute noteworthy essays. I often say, “I’m only as good as what people send me.”

      All of this takes enormous time. Estimate how much, and then add a zero or two. So why do I continue to do it?

      I’m still making people happy; fan mail (a regular section in the newsletter) keeps pouring in over the transom. I still enjoy being in contact with people and throwing parties. I edit almost everything that I publish, and I enjoy the challenge of improving writing. And there’s still that ineffable “glory” thing.

Or maybe I’m just a hamster.