Things are looking up
Last year, life everywhere stopped.
It鈥檚 restarting now 鈥� and with a vengeance.
This month, Major League baseball parks are starting to fill with delirious fans who鈥檝e been starved for peanuts, and popcorn, and the cracks of the bats.
A recent home series for the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field was their first with 100% seating capacity.
There were massive crowds for the four-game sweep of their rival St. Louis Cardinals.
This time last year, there were only cardboard cutouts where fans were supposed to be.
Heck! Last season Major League Baseball started two weeks late, and only after a truncated spring training.
Anybody, on any team, who tested positive for COVID-19 would lead to games being postponed. There were a total of 43 postponements across the league, which meant a lot 鈥� since each team only played 60 games instead of the normal 162.
The same kinds of restrictions had existed for the NBA and NHL. And those sports are slowly returning to normal during the current playoffs.
When the NFL resumes in late summer for the upcoming season, its games won鈥檛 be played in the stark, near-empty stadiums of last season. It鈥檚 certainly worth noting how far things have come since the winter of 2020. (That seems so long ago, doesn鈥檛 it?)
Going to the movies was out of the question. Many of us had to resort to the low brow, binge-watching of series like, well, er, 鈥淭iger King.鈥�
Over the years, I鈥檝e resigned myself to the fact that I will still bravely look in the mirror after spending time watching people on TV, who I鈥檇 cross the street to avoid in real life.
Joe Exotic is one of those people.
But I watched him and that show, with much of America. (A year later, I can鈥檛 remember much about it. I feel blessed that I can鈥檛.)
During the early days of COVID-19, I, like just about everyone in America, fell prey to 鈥淭he Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020.鈥�
Just as I, like many Americans, suffered from 鈥淭he Great Disinfectant Glut of 2020.鈥�
My wife, Terry, the trooper that she is, was particularly good at getting up before dawn, and heading to our local supermarkets, with the hopes of bringing home the contents of her predesignated lists of supplies. (Substitutions 鈥� bad ones 鈥� were the order of the day.)
By contrast, I slept until she returned. I didn鈥檛 want to get in her way, I suppose.
I doubt that many people in those days even dreamed that by now there would be no need to plot a visit to a convenience store.
But here we are.
Most of us are now vaccinated and ready to go anywhere and do anything.
Schools are slowly, but surely, getting back to normal in most parts of the country.
For a while, it seemed as if school kids might鈥檝e grown up being more familiar with touchscreens than their teachers.
That should change in the fall.
These weeks it鈥檚 time for young folks to start heading outside and engaging in pursuits tailor-made for summer.
When it was clear the world was in the throes of a pandemic (the official declaration by the World Health Organization was on March 11, 2020), nearly every newscast carried updated lists of infections and deaths.
That鈥檚 no longer the case. It hasn鈥檛 been for months.
As a result, there are far more announcements about the openings of things than there are of closings.
Meanwhile, another sign everything is getting back to normal has been the fact that President Biden joined leaders from around the world at the G7 and NATO Summits, and his audience with the queen of England.
The leaders at the G7 enjoyed what you might call 鈥淓lbow Bump Diplomacy鈥� while they gathered maskless.
Biden鈥檚 audience with the queen was without masks too.
At the NATO Summit, there were masks, but the fact that the leaders were even in Brussels is a testament to how the world is slowly, but collectively, throwing off the shackles of that damnable disease.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 40-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.