Long Island’s ‘Newsday’ reported on Friday October 6th that Phil Aronson, vice-president of the alumni association for the Mill Neck School for the Deaf, has not missed the school’s annual ‘Apple Festival’ since he was 3 years old which was 36 years ago! Aronson says the event “is a pleasant get-together for old friends to become reunited.”

More than 100,000 pounds of ripe, crisp apples are consumed at the event — Red and Golden Delicious, McIntosh, Cortland, Empire and Greening.  Some 5,000 pounds of cheese, 2,000 pounds of fudge, 3,000 pies, 4,000 boxes of strudel, 10,000 bratwursts, 10,000 ham burgers and 10,000 cans of soda are there to be sold at the School’s 43rd annual Fall Harvest Festival which will draw 50,000 people who are coming from all over the country to the Mill Neck Manor School for the Deaf in Mill Neck, Long Island. In addition to being a teacher assistant at the Mill Neck Manor School, Aronson, who has a bachelor’s degree in science, is the Junior National Association for the Deaf adviser and an assistant coach for the school’s varsity basketball team. He also runs a bowling clinic for Deaf children and is a baseball umpire for high schools in Nassau County.