Eddie and I met at NNHS and became friends. We both went on to Brandeis in Waltham. Eddie loved basketball. To him, the Celtics could do no wrong. I think he was their biggest fan, after Johnny Most. Ed also enjoyed attending the varsity basketball team home games at Brandeis, and sometimes I would accompany him. One evening, while walking alone from campus to the gym to see a game, he was brutally attacked from behind by an unidentified assailant who struck him on the head with a heavy object. Eddie was found lying on the street bleeding and unconscious and was rushed to Waltham Hospital. He had sustained brain damage and underwent emergency brain surgery. And although he survived the ordeal, he was never the same thereafter.
Ed lived out the remainder of his life quietly at home, physically and emotionally disabled. His beloved mother Irma was his caretaker. He lived on Cabot Street about a mile from NNHS. I would visit him occasionally, talk to him on the phone and take him out to eat or to a movie. During a movie, he often would fall asleep because he was so heavily medicated.
At Brandeis, we would often eat lunch together at the Castle. He always had a corned beef sandwich. Ed was a brilliant math student and was headed for a promising career in academia until his "accident," as he euphemistically referred to it. Despite the terrible hand that fate had dealt him, he never lost his sense of humor. He enjoyed telling me the stupidest jokes ("Hey, Jerry, do you know why I love bananas so much?" "No, Ed. Why?" "Because they have a peel!" And that was one of the better ones!).
Ed was a gentle soul. He passed a few years ago. I met his older brother David, who had been living in the UK for many years, for the first time at Ed's funeral. RIP
Gerald Romanow
Eddie and I met at NNHS and became friends. We both went on to Brandeis in Waltham. Eddie loved basketball. To him, the Celtics could do no wrong. I think he was their biggest fan, after Johnny Most. Ed also enjoyed attending the varsity basketball team home games at Brandeis, and sometimes I would accompany him. One evening, while walking alone from campus to the gym to see a game, he was brutally attacked from behind by an unidentified assailant who struck him on the head with a heavy object. Eddie was found lying on the street bleeding and unconscious and was rushed to Waltham Hospital. He had sustained brain damage and underwent emergency brain surgery. And although he survived the ordeal, he was never the same thereafter.
Ed lived out the remainder of his life quietly at home, physically and emotionally disabled. His beloved mother Irma was his caretaker. He lived on Cabot Street about a mile from NNHS. I would visit him occasionally, talk to him on the phone and take him out to eat or to a movie. During a movie, he often would fall asleep because he was so heavily medicated.
At Brandeis, we would often eat lunch together at the Castle. He always had a corned beef sandwich. Ed was a brilliant math student and was headed for a promising career in academia until his "accident," as he euphemistically referred to it. Despite the terrible hand that fate had dealt him, he never lost his sense of humor. He enjoyed telling me the stupidest jokes ("Hey, Jerry, do you know why I love bananas so much?" "No, Ed. Why?" "Because they have a peel!" And that was one of the better ones!).
Ed was a gentle soul. He passed a few years ago. I met his older brother David, who had been living in the UK for many years, for the first time at Ed's funeral. RIP