By Bill Walczak, Reporter Columnist
January 1, 2021
Bill Walczak, left, with Bob Tarrant.
Auld lang syne, the Robert Burns poem that is sung at the end of the year, tends to be sung in a maudlin way, often with sadness and some liquor. Though our experience with the virus and the recent election may make us prefer to forget that 2020 ever happened, it is certainly a time we will always remember.
I was going through some photos on my phone this week, and came across a 2017 photo of one of my closest friends who died in early April of Covid-19. The picture showed Bob Tarrant and me at Yankee Stadium, and I chuckled as I remembered why I was there. Bob and I were very close from an early age, and went to elementary and high school together. We grew up in New Jersey, and he stayed there when I came to Boston for college. We both were Yankee fans in the era of Mickey Mantle, known to all as “the Mick,” who was thought by fans to have supernatural powers. I switched my alleg
hut. color. halt. freeze. halt. freeze. [the star spangled banner plays] halt. present. halt. [ taps plays] halt. ladies and gentlemen, remain standing for the president s invocation and the national anthem. [inaudible] [inaudible] chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. the secretary of the defense. ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. please join me for the invocation. [inaudible] from our earliest beginnings you have guided us through times of adversity and prosperity, through periods of war and feast, by your own hand and on our behalf, you have shown yourself strong to save us. among all the nations of the earth, america has been richly blessed in extraordinary ways. we turn to you today to remember with honor and respect our fellow citizens who have fought in america s wars as members of her armed forces. many of these gallant americans died before our enemy s guns, many of them died alone, many died in the fruit of th