Time to Turn The Page on 2020

Submitted by tigerd on December 30th, 2020 at 6:44 PM

The losses in 2020 continue to pile up as we lost a great one today in the person of Alto Reed of the Bob Seger Silver Bullet Band after a lengthy battle with colon cancer. What an incredible showman. Feel lucky to have been able to watch him one last time live when Seger did his final couple of shows at Pine Knob. 

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Sam1863

December 30th, 2020 at 6:55 PM ^

I don't think 2020 is a year that you "turn the page " on.

I think it's more of a year where you "flush the toilet twice" to make sure it all goes.

Joined: 04/27/2014

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Twitch

December 30th, 2020 at 8:11 PM ^

That riff has been giving me the lump and tear for 20 years.  That was my uncle's favorite song.  I can still close my eyes and see my dad swaying back and forth with his eyes closed as we said goodbye to my uncle who lost his battle with his inner demons and took his own life almost two months after I graduated high school.   

Joined: 01/01/2019

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Eng1980

December 30th, 2020 at 6:58 PM ^

R.I.P. Alto Reed

Nice headline.  I was pondering great Alto Reed moments when I thought . . . hey, wait a minute, what was that headline?  (Nice job.) Live Bullet was blasting all day and everywhere when I arrived on campus in 1976.

Amazing how much the saxophone player adds to a band.  It has been 9 years since Clarence Clemons of the e-Street Band passed on.  

Joined: 04/28/2016

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uncle leo

December 30th, 2020 at 7:04 PM ^

I'm 35. In all honesty, this is one of the worst years that I have experienced. 

2001 was probably the worst because of 9/11, but this is right up there with just the pure loss of life, spirit, and everything coming to a crashing halt.

I really hope we can return to a somewhat normal existence again.

Joined: 07/29/2012

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SecretAgentMayne

December 30th, 2020 at 7:12 PM ^

Fuck the hell off and die 2020. I was only 5 years old when 9/11 happened so I didn’t understand the implications of it, nor do I have any real memories of what the world was like before then, so naturally I agree. This has absolutely been the worst year of my conscious life with not only the state of the world but with my own mental and personal well-being. 
 

Here’s to 2021 with functional normalcy hopefully returning soon.

Joined: 07/10/2019

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uncle leo

December 30th, 2020 at 7:17 PM ^

I was 16 and I will never forget it. I was taking a Chemistry test in high school and the principal came on and said "we are aware of what is happening in New York." And then for literally the entire week, we just watched TV in our classes; no one did any work. 

Honestly, and I try my BEST not to get nostalgic about much, but life was just infinitely better. In elementary, middle, high school, all I cared about was hanging out with my friends, playing soccer, getting together playing Fifa 95, Goldeneye, etc... We didn't have smart phones and we were SO much better without them.

Joined: 07/29/2012

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Twitch

December 30th, 2020 at 10:01 PM ^

I was in college.  That year, while that day was awful to say the least, it was kinda nice for a while after.  That event galvanized this country and for a short moment in time we were civilized and caring.  Obviously it still sucked for families of the victims, don't get me wrong.  But the outpouring of support for the families was high.  And the support for our armed forces was at a level I had never experienced before.

Joined: 01/01/2019

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Perkis-Size Me

December 30th, 2020 at 8:56 PM ^

Each year brings its own challenges, and I’m in no position to tell someone which year was “worse,” especially if they knew someone who lost their life on 9/11, but 9/11 didn’t severely disrupt your every day life for a long period of time. Certainly not as long as what COVID has done. 

With COVID, there has been a severe economic toll on countless families due to millions of people losing their jobs, and then you have to factor in the severe mental and emotional toll inflicted on many people when they are essentially forced into not seeing or being around their families or people they care about. They are forced into isolation for an indefinite, undetermined amount of time, and many people simply don’t know how to handle that. 

I think when you also add in the countless instances of social unrest in this country in the second half of the year, the most heated, disruptive and exhausting election this country may have ever had and the fallout that has resulted from it, and the clear division this country now faces on countless societal, economic, and cultural issues, I think this year has had a profoundly difficult effect on everyone involved. In many cases much more difficult than 9/11. Its been a much, much longer burn if nothing else. 

Again, if anyone feels differently that’s entirely fine. Just my opinion. 9/11 was much more of a “you remember where you were when it happened” kind of event, but the effects of COVID will, in my mind, be much longer lasting. 

Joined: 11/30/2011

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evenyoubrutus

December 30th, 2020 at 7:14 PM ^

I'm pretty sure we've been lamenting the shittiness of the year for like a half decade now. It seems to continue to get worse year after year.

Just imagine how bad 2021 will be.

Joined: 11/04/2008

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WolverineHistorian

December 30th, 2020 at 7:53 PM ^

2020 didn’t just have Covid.  I also lost my brother-in-law to colon cancer (who was only 50 and the father of a 13 and a 9 year old.)  We also had to put our beloved family dog of 16 years down. 

The entire time, I wanted normalcy to escape the sadness.  But nope...we had covid to deal with...and a president who refused to take it seriously at every turn.

Yes, 2020 can rot in hell.  Glad to see you go.

Joined: 08/10/2009

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MGoStrength

December 30th, 2020 at 8:06 PM ^

On the one hand my brother got married and had a baby and I got married as well.  On the other hand, getting married during Covid was quite stressful.  Covid turned a 120 person wedding into a 47-person outdoor mask wearing affair.  Many of my best friends and older family didn't make it, including my best man (who incidentally got the flu the day before).  This wedding had a 2 year engagement where we put down most deposits pre-Covid which forced to make some hard choices about postponing and having a potentially 3-4 year engagement (who knows when Covid will end) or moving forward with significant accommodations.  We moved forward, but at the expense of my wife and I's sanity.  We almost didn't get there several times, at least by words in the heat of the moment.  I'm sure I'm not the first.  Anyways, beyond that event, this is about as stressful of a year as I can remember.  Plenty of other years had stress with typical life stress-filled events like starting new jobs, losing jobs, moving, changing careers, etc.  But, none of those challenging life events seemed to put an entire 12 months in such a negative light as Covid had done to 2020.  And, I didn't move, change jobs, or do any of those challenging things this year.  It was a quite stable and otherwise calm year in those terms.  But, it has been hard by all accounts.  Work has been hard.  Relationships have been hard.  Everything has just been hard.  So yeah, I'm hopeful 2021 doesn't feel quite so hard.  And, I wish each and everyone of you the most heart felt best wishes in 2021 that I can give a bunch of strangers on blog :)

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Slim Whitman

December 31st, 2020 at 8:33 AM ^

Yeah, agree it's not "better." It seemed angry vs wistful or melancholy (or however you want to describe the original). It's definitely louder and raspier, all of which seemed to fit with a GFY2020 vibe.

I only paid more than passing attention to these guys when Newsted was in it. Knew his mom. She sold hearing aids with mine.

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