Memorial Tributes
Edward Cursen Rogers
Deceased October 14, 2007
 

Edited by Classmates Everett "Sid" Dunn and John Learson

Dear Ed,

In retrospect, we wanted to thank you for being our friend, companion, humorist, inspiration, teacher, and wit.  We knew you so well during the fleeting years between September of 1952 and June 1956, and some of us were fortunate to keep your friendship close for a few more years during college and beyond.  Now, what remains is the memory - the memory of all the great things you taught us and all the great gifts you gave us.  Some of our first memories of you were in our freshman year, recalling your antics in Ms. Cowan’s Latin I class - being creative with conjugation endings, and helping us to remember:

     Mica, mica, parva stella,        (Twinkle, twinkle little star,)
     Miror quaenam sis tam bella. (How I wonder what you are.)
     Super terra in caelo,               (Up above the world so high,)
     Alba gemma splendido.          (Like a diamond in the sky.)

It was you, and not Shakespeare, who taught us that brevity, is the soul of wit. For this, and other antics, the least we could do was award you the position of Class Wit - a position you held for the rest of your years at Deering.  We thank you for teaching us early on, the other version of the Deering fight song - a song which, in its irreverence, was in some ways more memorable than the Politically Correct version. It became a staple at all athletic competitions:

    Let’s give a cheer for Old Deering High, you bring the whiskey, I’ll bring the rye,

    Send the freshmen out for gin, and don’t let a sober sophomore in,

    We never stagger, we never fall, and we sober up on wood alcohol,

    While the loyal faculty lies drunk on the barroom floor.

Who can forget your Role as Tommy Green in the Dramatic Club play, Time Out for Ginger?  Certainly not the Dramatic Club Director, Mr. Burgess, whose hair was noticeably whiter and thinner at the end of the production, and certainly not the rest of us who relied upon you to keep the plot line going in some direction - sometimes in spite of its intended direction.

For those of us who knew you in the Army, we remember the day you and Everett returned to visit Deering, wearing your Army uniforms, and walked up the center staircase, only to be reminded by Miss Joyce that you should know better than to go UP a DOWN staircase!  In less than one year, a two-way stair had become a one-way stair!  You became a Bridge teacher early in life - instructing Everett and John at a Chevy car dealership while a car was being greased, and then dragging them to Bob Kibler's for a full session and giving everyone a life-long passion for the game.  Many days were spent at the bridge table, instead of study, with that group plus the Duke, and also with your parents Elisabeth (who insisted you were Edward) and Red.  For those of us who knew you beyond Deering during the college years, your Bridge lessons were unforgettable - the all nighters at Boston University, and later while you were living in Boston, culminating at 6 or 7 AM and ending in Chinatown for breakfast.  All this is part of your legend, as are the Red Sox games, when admittance was a freebee after the 7th inning.  But those times sure have gone!  Looking back, this was no social bridge, gazing casually at your cards while discussing the news of the day and reaching for the tea and crumpets; yours was the kind of bridge Attila the Hun would have taught in four lessons:  1. Focus.   2. Do what you are doing.  3. Take no prisoners.  4. Those that die just may be the lucky ones.

Note: In later years, Ed published a local Bridge magazine, and was honored with an award by Audry Grant, a renowned national bridge authority.  Ed continued to teach and play bridge until the time of his death.  We can also remember the hockey games in the rink behind your house and Evergreen Cemetery, and the haunting of the DHS tennis courts.  If we came to the courts and no one was there, we could knock on your door and you would answer it with your racket in hand with your classic "you got the (tennis) balls?  Did you have a lookout there to see if anyone was there alone?  Ditto, if 3 showed for doubles, the word was..."Get Rogers".  In fact everything you did, you did 100% and with gusto. You taught us the meaning of so many things - but especially humor, and we looked to you when we needed to have a light moment.  In our yearbook, Deering’s first tribute to you was so apt - and it remains so today:

Eddie is always smiling, never growling

He keeps the students always howling . . .

The very best to you, Ed,

The Deering High School Class of 1956
 

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Remembering Ed Rogers by Classmate Matthew (Bunny) Goldfarb

I take this opportunity to say goodbye to Ed Rogers.  We were good buddies particularly in junior high school. Ed was mad cap, venturesome, daring, and challenging.  I enjoyed hearing about Ed from Everett and John.

These are my memories:

First of all, we were members of the “Bo club“.  I was Mattbo;  Ed was Edbo;  Leland Merriman was Leebo.

Second, after classes at Lincoln, we gathered at Winships at the corner of Brentwood and Stevens for cherry cokes and glazed donuts. Ed expropriated pocket books (you know, used the unofficial lending library) and passed them around.  I still think Erskine Caldwell’s “God’s Little Acre“ is a great American classic; where, oh where was Darlin’ Jill when I needed her?  Then, Ed would underline the best parts of the book for the next reader.  He was ever thoughtful.

Skip, Ed and I would bowl at the YMCA, set up pins for each other, play pool, and use the rifle range in the basement of the old Y.  On a public bus, Ed would call me “King Jr. Matt”, and of course I had to call him “King Jr. Ed”.  Then, Ed would proclaim, in his best outdoor voice, that King Jr. Matt, “You’re nothing but sex, and filth, and vice.  No good will come of you".  Blue haired ladies would pivot in their seats on the bus to see who these ruffians from King Junior High School were.

Then, there was a trip to Old Orchard Beach, where in the long lamented past, that portion of the pier still existed. You know, the ball room, but most especially the arcade, where you could buy risqué charged cards which we circulated amongst our friends at school.  Skip, what is meant by “pooter scootin “?

Ed had such talents in art. He drew a hunter’s warning showing a careless guy with a gun slung over his shoulder, pointing at a companion. The tag line for the poster was “Watch That Gun “.  I believe Ed’s poster was the best at Lincoln.  I wished that I had Ed’s talent.

I think of Ed after his stroke, and wished that I had visited him. We did write to each other, but not enough on my part.  I shall miss Ed, and am saddened to think of him gone. Ed was so vital, so bright, so funny, and very much loved by so many of us.

Bunny (Matthew Goldfarb)
 

Footnote:  Ed was born in 1938, graduated DHS in 1956, did 6 months of active service with the U.S. Army, and graduated from Boston University in 1961.  He worked at Prudential Insurance, and later used his green thumb ability to go into the horticultural business.  He was married to Linda Kerwin, class of 1960, from 1964-1988.   Ed's ashes were placed on Peaks Island, where many of his family are buried, by his cousin Peter Cursen.