A ringing phone is nothing out of the ordinary in a busy newsroom full of reporters hunting down stories. But one particular caller never failed to brighten our days.

The introduction, in a cheerful drawl, was always the same.

“Yes, good morning to you, this is Robert Bitzer over here in Erving.”

Whether he was calling to see when his latest “Times Past” column might run in the Life & Times section or to ask about a sports score for a game that finished too late to make it into print, it was always clear to our staff how important the Greenfield Recorder was in Bitzer’s life. And he, in turn, was important to us.

So, the news hit like a ton of bricks last week when we received Bitzer’s death notice. Just the day before we had pondered whether he was doing OK, as we hadn’t heard from him in a few months. Perhaps he was back dealing with some health problems at Baystate Franklin Medical Center or recuperating at a rehabilitation facility. Still, being away from his Lillians Way residence in Erving hadn’t deterred him from calling before.

At 98 years old, Bitzer’s death wasn’t exactly unexpected. He had even achieved the distinction of being named Erving’s oldest resident in December 2023. Certainly, some health problems had been a struggle for him as the years went by, leading his calls to come less frequently than the daily greetings we were once accustomed to.

Some of our earliest memories of Bitzer came by mail. Specifically, the “Times Past” columns he would send in, penned by hand, not on typical 8.5-by-11-inch sheets of paper, but most often on tiny sheets that could have come from a notepad left on the kitchen table to write down a grocery list. He often kept our typist, at the time, quite busy, sometimes writing with such vigor that we’d have as many as three columns at a time waiting in the system to be used.

Readers might remember Bitzer for his historical knowledge of the area, which came from the treasure trove of documents, old newspapers and photographs that he squirreled away. His keen interest in the past, coupled with his organization, fueled a steady stream of columns. In January 2022, he proclaimed that, looking back over the previous four years, he believed he had written more than 60 columns, and then he preceded to pen another dozen columns through June of that year. Bitzer gave our younger readers and staff members a glimpse into how Greenfield used to be.

Even after Bitzer decided that he had run out of stories to tell, it didn’t minimize his engagement with the community newspaper. As someone without a computer, the daily newspaper coming to his door was Bitzer’s way of knowing what was going on in the world, and for what he couldn’t find in the paper, we were there to help, too. We were there to answer his questions as to whether the Red Sox beat the Yankees last night (he’d always want a call back with the score and some details), or which members of the Kennedy family were still alive after he read a book about them. Again, his love of history was constant.

And if, by chance, his newspaper hadn’t arrived that day, it wouldn’t take us long to hear! Regardless of whether his column was in it, he was eager to read, front to back.

It’s possible that no reader has loved the Greenfield Recorder quite as much as Bitzer did. With every call, he’d thank us for all that we do, giving us some pick-me-ups in a field that has a lot of critics. It’s people like Bitzer that keep us in journalism, feeling inspired to tell stories that matter to our readers and to bring them the information they need to make educated decisions.

Suffice to say, we’ll miss our dear friend, and we send our condolences to his loved ones. We hope that we made a difference in Bitzer’s life. He certainly made a difference in ours.