Fifty years have passed since Jay Bosco and Russell Tanner donned their Boy Scout uniforms at the 1964 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Bay City. Still, with the Bay City celebration nearing its 60th installment, the two longtime friends remember the details of the parade's 10th appearance like it was yesterday.
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HAMPTON TOWNSHIP, MI
— Fifty years have passed since Jay Bosco and Russell Tanner donned their Boy
Scout uniforms at the 1964 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Bay City. Still, with the Bay City
celebration nearing its 60th installment, the two longtime friends remember the
details of the parade's 10th appearance like it was yesterday.
"It was a very cold day that day," said Bosco, now a 62-year-old optometrist in Hampton Township. He pointed out the snowflakes drifting
through a Bay City Times photo of the parade, showing a 12-year-old Bosco holding
a snare drum with the rest of the scouts on Center Avenue.
"Those earmuffs weren't part of the uniform," he said,
looking at the picture. "I don't know how they got so many white earmuffs at
that one time, but they did."
To Bosco and Tanner, seventh- and eighth-grade students at what
was then St. Joseph Catholic Grade School, Bay City in 1964 was a
friendlier place, one where it felt like everybody knew everybody. It saw them
both join the Boy Scouts, which was on the rise, which led them to their troop's
drum and bugle corps.
"We would practice in the gym, the St. Joseph High School
gym," Bosco said. "You remember going around in circles on Saturdays."
In the Times photo, Tanner marches with a bass drum. Now 65 and
the mayor of Essexville, he recalled the American history leading up to the
spring of 1964, from the death of John F. Kennedy to the arrival of the Beatles
to Olympic speed skater and Essexville native Terry McDermott's return home from the Winter Olympics with a gold medal.
"We just went through, four months before, the Kennedy assassination,
which was a crazy thing," Tanner said.
"I know we were still praying in church about it, some of
the intercessions," added Bosco.
On March 15, 1964 — the day of the parade — Tanner and the
rest of the corps lined up on Livingston Street to make the group's parade debut,
marching down Center Avenue and pulling up in front of the judges' stand, near
the Bay County Building at 515 Center Ave.
"We were nervous and excited at the same time … and we weren't
half bad either, we were pretty decent," Bosco said, remembering that the photo
came just as they had passed Madison Avenue, just as they were ready to come to
a stop. "When we were playing, a Bay City Times guy came out in front of me and
took the picture."
The rest, as they say, is history.
Jay Bosco, left, and Russell Tanner recreate their positions in a photo from the 1964 St. Patrick's Day Parade on Thursday, March 6, outside Jay Bosco's home in Hampton Township. Bosco and Tanner marched with the Boy Scout Troop 110 Drum and Bugle Corps in the 1964 parade. Yfat Yossifor | The Bay City Times
Though the drum and bugle corps returned to Center Avenue in
March 1965 and 1966, Bosco said their time in the Boy Scouts didn't last for
long.
"We were about 14 years old when we discovered girls," he
joked, adding that his later stint in the Air Force and eight years of college
took him out of town.
Over the years, Tanner stayed a little closer. In 1968, he
marched with the state champion football team from St. Joseph Catholic High
School, and drove the queen's float for several years after he turned 16.
"I'd been in a lot of them, riding on different floats,
because sometimes a family member would have an organization they belonged to
or whatever," he said. "Back then, if somebody had a car with a trailer hitch,
they were going to be pulling a float."
One of Tanner's biggest parade days came in 1983, when he
surprised his wife Susan with an engagement ring.
"I said, 'Hey, come here, I want to show you this, I've got a
surprise.' So we got out in the middle of the street, and I got down on one
knee," he said, remembering that his wife still jokes with him that the emerald
could have been bigger.
Tanner said in 2013 he proposed again to Susan. She said yes, again.
Bosco returned to the Bay Area in the in the early 1980s, and
he's been an avid parade watcher ever since. He said he'll be near the intersection of Center Avenue and Sheridan Street watching this year's parade, which steps off at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 16.
"I think the bands got better, the floats got better," he
said. "It was always just an enjoyment to watch the parade."
Tanner agreed and said he'll be marching in this year's parade, representing the city of Essexville.
"It was always just a rite of spring. Even just a couple
years ago, you wouldn't believe the people who were shirtless," he said. "I
think it's a time for the people of Bay City to be proud that people from all
over, different parts of Bay County, come to Bay City."
— Sam Easter is a general assignment reporter for The Bay
City Times. He can be reached at seaster@mlive.com.