Ronnie Edens lived in Brooklyn, NY, until he was 12 years old when his family moved to Middletown. He was a star high school athlete who stands on the shoulders of many great Middletown athletes before him. He says, “if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today.” Edens was involved in community activities as a young person and still is now that he is retired and lives nearby in Meriden with his wife.
[Arriving in Middletown] was a wake up call. So language wise, expression wise, buildings, surroundings more outdoor, before you have tall buildings, 22 story buildings. Here, you had buildings maybe about, you know, 3 or 4 stories high. So, you know, it is more, country, but my language barrier was a little tough because I had a Brooklyn accent, and they didn’t support me too well here because, I was a city boy, and they thought my vocabulary wasn’t to American English terms here in Connecticut.
We lived [in Hoberman’s Apartments] until they gave us an apartment in Long River Village. So, you know, you put in an application to see if you move there. Of course, they wouldn’t let us move anywhere else because the color of our skin. So they directed us towards low income places. And so we did that. I had no problem with that. My mother was a well educated lady, and she actually worked at Connecticut Valley Hospital. We called it CVH. She figured we didn’t have a car, and she can walk to work. So that was the strategy plan. And it worked out. And the Village was an excellent place to grow up.
I was a Woodrow Wilson athlete. So I played football, basketball and track. Lettered in each one my freshman year. I’m standing on the shoulders of some great people, you know. So if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today. And, if you wanted to have a good game of basketball, you’d be at Otis Playground. Otis playground was our Rucker Park.
We created a lot of things in Middletown, in the 1968, ‘69, there was a lot of tension in the city of Middletown. We developed, a place called TOPS. And when we did that, it was called Teenage Organization for Productive Services. That was created, by, actually, Missus Reba Moses was a mother that really, spearheaded that. And she got a couple of us young people, I happened to live in the Village. And, between her sons and myself and a couple more people, we had meetings at the YMCA, and we came up with TOPS. And that was to cut the tension between some of the things that was happening in Middletown. We had a drill team. Our drill team went to DC and we competed against Florida A&M and some of the larger colleges and we actually came home with a trophy.
