FRAMINGHAM The sound of laughter and the clatter of poker chips on a table reverberated through Framingham’s Columbus Club.
Members fewer than any year in recent memory had gathered on the final day of 2020 to close out a dismally historic year at one of the city’s most historic meeting places.
Though there was joy in the room that afternoon, there was also a sobering uncertainty in the air that would carry into the new year.
Columbus Club President Louis Bruno reflected on that uncertainty as he looked around the club’s ground floor barroom at the empty tables, which far outnumbered the occupied ones. Seemingly out of habit, he began to count the people who were there, mostly longtime members Bruno called “the tried and true.”