Norman was a very special friend of mine, and I was stunned to find out he had passed away just before our 10th reunion. Catching up with him was one of the main reasons I went to the reunion.
We became close in Junior High when we did some scenes from "Romeo and Juliet" in drama class. There were quite a few budding "Juliets", but not enough "Romeos" to go around,so Norm had to play Romeo to all of us! I'll confess, I was a little jealous when he did the death scene (and kiss) with Monica Litke, though we got to do the balcony scene, which was pretty darn cool at the time.
We didn't see much of each other at McClatchy until our senior year, when we found ourselves sitting next to each other in debate class. As it so often is with old friends, we picked up right where we had left off. One day all the seniors wore a set of tags; we were supposed to take a tag off and give it to someone if we spoke to them. I saw Norm that afternoon, still wearing his full set of tags. He smiled, unpinned all of his tags, wrote a little note on the back and handed them to me. It said, "You were my favorite Juliet, even though I got to kiss Monica Litke." I still have them.
The last time we spoke, we were both attending City College, and we ran into each other on Sutterville Road, each walking in different directions. We spoke excitedly about how we should get together to catch up. Sadly, we never had a chance to do that.
I still miss Norm, and I will always think of him as my first Romeo.
Jean Gimblin (Cress)
Norman was a very special friend of mine, and I was stunned to find out he had passed away just before our 10th reunion. Catching up with him was one of the main reasons I went to the reunion.We became close in Junior High when we did some scenes from "Romeo and Juliet" in drama class. There were quite a few budding "Juliets", but not enough "Romeos" to go around,so Norm had to play Romeo to all of us! I'll confess, I was a little jealous when he did the death scene (and kiss) with Monica Litke, though we got to do the balcony scene, which was pretty darn cool at the time.
We didn't see much of each other at McClatchy until our senior year, when we found ourselves sitting next to each other in debate class. As it so often is with old friends, we picked up right where we had left off. One day all the seniors wore a set of tags; we were supposed to take a tag off and give it to someone if we spoke to them. I saw Norm that afternoon, still wearing his full set of tags. He smiled, unpinned all of his tags, wrote a little note on the back and handed them to me. It said, "You were my favorite Juliet, even though I got to kiss Monica Litke." I still have them.
The last time we spoke, we were both attending City College, and we ran into each other on Sutterville Road, each walking in different directions. We spoke excitedly about how we should get together to catch up. Sadly, we never had a chance to do that.
I still miss Norm, and I will always think of him as my first Romeo.