John P. Abramson

We miss our friend and former neighbor, and share this Scrabble board in honor of the multiple times he thumped us.

I met John forty years ago, when I was assigned to a project that he headed at the Massachusetts Department of Education. Some kind of school visit and report had to be completed, and John was the expert. He clearly knew what he was doing and had everything under control. But even better, he was such a pleasure to work with: the perfect mix of knowledgeable, professional, and capable but also funny, kind, and serious-but-not-TOO-serious about it all. John was the kind of person that one just...

I met John fifty years ago at a monthly poker game, and I immediately felt a kinship with him. We stayed connected across the decades, and I saw him for the last time just a couple of weeks before he passed away, when we collaborated on a radio program together. It felt right that our final meeting revolved around conversation, music, and shared curiosity-the things that had always drawn us together. I was drawn to all the qualities that made "Johnny Turbo" such a wonderfully quirky human...