Joe Amarante: Positivity must be the rule

I miss the Yankees. I was talking about the Yanks to a Red Sox fan I know the other day and we agreed on one thing: We need baseball back ASAP. Not just in a see-twoinnings, mow-the-lawn and see-two-more-innings way but in a watch-every-pitchand-twitch way.

Baseball can help ease the continuing toll of losses since mid-March. In addition to friends and loved ones, we’re losing most of the Goodspeed theater season, the full Ivoryton Playhouse season, every symphony and band concert scheduled from March 15 through at least Memorial Day, the live events of June’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, shows at Connecticut casinos, and — just noted from Jimmy Tickey of Celebrate Shelton — Food Trucks on the River in June

and September.

As of the other day, 17 of the 34 annual agricultural fairs that were scheduled throughout the state have been canceled, according to ctnewsjunkie.com. And Wednesday, it was announced the Milford Oyster Festival in August and Norwalk Oyster Festival in September have been canceled due to COVID-19 concerns.

We measure our disorientation in frayed emotions, lost sleep and nostalgia for the places we can’t go. There’s even a WFSB-TV bit called “What Day Is It?”

But good, too, emerges in a tough time, from tributes to front-line workers to volunteerism to the Wethersfield Fire Department saluting my grandson’s 9th birthday with a drive-by parade of engines with sirens blaring on a sunny Saturday. (I got to eat cake outdoors.)

More good: The Connecticut Office of the Arts is accepting applications for its CARES Act Emergency Relief Grants, $1,500 checks for Connecticut arts nonprofits that have been adversely affected by pandemic. There is salary support, too.

The Guilford Performing Arts Festival is offering six Artists’ Awards and a total of $15,000 in grants to Connecticut performing artists who create original, new work for premiere at the 2021 festival (in music, dance, drama and spoken word). See Guilfordperformingartsfest.org.

And like music fans of other nonprofit groups, Waterbury Symphony Orchestra patrons have rallied their support by making their unused concert tickets a taxdeductible donation to the symphony, according to officials there.

During the lockdown, the Northeast air and traffic are better and many have been forced to live a simpler life, wasting less.

And there’s hope. The New Haven Symphony and the Shubert Theatre just announced their fall seasons. And I’ve decided, like many folks, that positivity must be the rule if hope is to pay off in a better time.