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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1978-10-19, Page 21For as long as I can remember the World Series has always held a special excitement, The fall classic was as sacred as that baseball dove that took years. to break in and when games were played on crisp autumn , afternoons it was customary to feign illness and develop symptoms of foreign diseases to stay - home from school to watch the series. And in high school the diseases simply gave way to playing hookey for a few hours in the afternoon. Principals tended to frown on it, but it was wor- thwhile.. 4) Regardless of whether or not one pays attention to baseball at all through the summer months, most people know the teams involved in the series.. and even go so far as to watch the games. As a youngster I believed the world would surely end after Bill Mazeroski, a Pfttsbargh Pit'ate non-descript second baseman, hit a heroic ninth- inning homer tobeat the New York Yankees to win the world series. But sentiments change and now I Would almost give away my four wood to see the Yankees Tose: Probably because the talent was bought. Now being an excitable and nervous fellow, watching the series is very demanding work. I scream, yell, shout encouragement, wave my arms frantically and occasionally punch the back of the couch in dejection or stab at the air with a clenched fist exultation. Now if you behave in this manner while with people who are then the closest of friends it is easy to be labelled an uncontrollable spastic or a certified basket. And ,along with the impulsive and nervous gestures gnes the baseball ingo. Sports, but perhaps baseball more so, has developed its own ver- nacularism. Real hip, jock strap, macho kind of stuff,'' So while sitting there watching perhaps one,of the most classic world series confrontations in the second g.ani.e which the Dodgers. won 4-3,, the tenseness drew me close to the situation. In that game the Dodgers trailed 2-1 but Ron Cey jerktd a 2-0 pitch into the left field seats to power the Dodgers into a 4-2 lead. Instinctively I jumped off the couch, jumped around the room for a while, yelling: "Bit stick you Penguin." And later in the gam, the ninth inning to be exact, one of the most exciting confrontations in world series history developed. A young fastball pitcher, by the name of Bpb Welch and only 21 years old faced the fearsome Auturna child. Reggie Jaelcson, The ,scenario;. Yankees trajl by rim in the ninth, two on, two oaxt and Jackson at the plate. All thedramawas there. Welch eventually struck out Jackson, after running the count to three and two, in the confrontation between the kid who could throw heat and the man who wields the bat like a bludgeon on opposing pitchers. And there I was screaming again : "How to hum you big Bob.Way to smolse it by hire. Way to put the heat on it." By the time this offering is served to the public the world series will be over and I'll get a chance to rest up before the football playoffs start. But one thing bothers me. I wonder why nobody invites me over to their place to watch these games. Inside: Weddings Jack Riddell Library Church news Farm news WDO Captain Comet Martha Seniors' Bazaar Page 3A, 4A, 5A Page 6A, 10A Page 8A Page 9A Page 12A, 13A ,,.,.,, :Page 14A Page 15A Page 17A Page 18A, 19A oderich 1 Lo--- STAR 131 YEAR -42 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1978 SECONI3 SECTION reat, r of imaginary place BY JOANNE BUCHANAN The latest work of Goderich artist Mona Mulhern is the type that people look at and smile, in remembrance of their childhood dreams and fantasies. Mrs. Mulhern has woven a theme through her latest works with the creation of an imaginary place, "Fere is . supreme and where delightful and awesome things happen." She calls this-- imaginary -place, Serrenwood, with the first half( of the name being derived from the combination of her three children's names, Sean, Erinn and Brennan. "Serrenwood", says Mrs. Mulhern, "is a place where I dwelt as a child, where my children .now dwell and to which I sometimes return." Up until about a year and a half ago, Mrs. Mulhern concentrated on realistic paintings and sketchings. She painted and drew the usual flowers, trees and leaves '(she has never been much for painting or drawing buildings). However, she became bored with this realism. In its place she was becoming increasingly interested in,fantasy and symbolism. But the study of symbolism in art is a frustrating undertaking. It would take a life -time to learn, she says. One day, Mrs. Mulhern was in a bookstore and 'she asked the woman working there if she had any books on art and symbolism. The woman shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "where do I begin", and, then, in a flash of inspiration, she suggested that Mrs. Mulhern read J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord .of the Rings series. Tolkien, through his literature, has created a place before man called Middle Earth,, featuring little animal -human -like creatures called the • Hobbits. The Hobbits go on adventures and journeys thr •ugh which the conflict been good and evil prevails. When she read her first Tolkien book, says ,Mrs. Mulhernis"it was like del'a'.. yuor going to a place where you thin,k you've been before even though you haven't. "It really struck a chord with me," she says. A lot of other co- incidental things hap- pened around the time she read Tolkien which would later influence her work too, she says. She took some of her fantasy work to an art mart in Chatham where she met a relative of her husband's. They began to talk about her new in- terest in fantasy, sym- bolism and the imagination and the relative suggested that she read a book of Indian legends and folk lore. Mrs. Mulhern did just that. She" became very impressed with the way the Indians . related to nature, not by, trying to control or dominate:itbut by existing or 'livingMn harmony with it. "I've always been interested in the ecology too," she says, "and my concern for the ecology and all these other off- shoots (i.e. interest in Tolkien and Indian folk lore) just seemed to come together." That's how Serrenwood Mona Mulhern, Goderich. artist, works away at a colored print in ,preparation for Colborne Township's Christmas Country Fair where she will have a display on Saturday. Her latest works revolve around a fantasy place called Serrenwood, with the first half of the name being derived from a combination of the names of her three children, Sean, Erinn and Brennan. Mrs. Mulhern combines her art work with being an active housewife and mother. (Photo by Joanne Buchanan) came to be. The 'concept of this imaginary place gives her a basis from which to work,and lends continuity to her work as well; she feels. She does not have as many restrictions with her new form of art as she did with realism. Right now Mrs. Mulhern is working on a series --of hand colored prints which she will. sell at the Christmas Country Fair in Saltford on October 21 along with her Hasty Notes featuring, various Serrenwood scenes. More and more ideas for` Serrenwood keep coming to her, she says•. and her children are a big help too with their suggestions. Serrenwood is a place children love. Mrs. Mulhern works from real things, mostly from scenes and objects in Huron County. She is fascinated by nature and her Serrenwood prints feature real trees from this area. If one looks closely at these trees, one can see faces woven into the branches. One can ' further see little doors in the trunks and can imagine little creatures making their homes there. Spiders' webs turn into bridges and tiny castles peek out from between flower stems in Mrs. Mulhern's drawings. Nature takes on a whole new aspect. and comes alive. Mrs. Mulhern likes to feature detail in her work. In her Serrenwood art pieces, she says, she tries to create something that the more one looks at, the more one can see. She does a lot of work with vegetables too. That Turn to page 2A • Mona Mu hern of Goderich displays one of her sketchings of a tree located in the imager ary place of Serrenwood. Mrs. Mulhern has woven a common theme through her latest works which revolve around Serrenwood. All the trees in Serrenwood have faces if one looks closely enough and there are also little doors in the trunks where one can imagine tiny creatures living. (Photo by Joanne Buchanan) Those damn Yankees. Never before in this space reserved for my thoughts on some trivial subject have' I written a word about major league sports, something I devote 'a considerable amount of attention to. I try to avoid commenting on activities in the sports world because this simply is not designed to be a sports column. But those damn Yankees have got me worked up. I'm not particularly con- cerned about the quality of play or the entertainment factor in 'this year's world series because both have ij een good. I would just like, to see the Yankees get beat. Don't ask me why. I'm not a devout Yankee hater. I didn't spend, the entire baseball' season scanning line scores to note with glee that Seattle bombed the Yanks 12-2 in May, My dislike of. the Yankees really never surfaces Until World Series time. My emotions have run the- gamut since the final weekend of the regular season •when the Yankees, began charting a course that has got them one win from yet another World Series championship. Frustration, anger, sorrow, joy,'elation, you name it and I've experienced it. I really wanted the Yankess to get knocked out of the 'playoffs in the regular season. I sat in Exhibition Stadium for nearly five hours during –the Blue Jays final home game and lost my fingernails and peace of mind before the Red Sox scored in the um- ptenth inning to dump the lowly Jays and move within a space of the Yanks. I frantically searched for a distant radio signal from Boston or New York to find out how both teams did in their final home stand that would inevitably decide final league standings. I 'nearly wrecked my car on the final Sunday of the season when I tuned in the Blue Says - Red Sots game on my way home from an afternoon assignment and discovered that the Red Sox were bombing the Blue Jays and the Indians were sticking it to the Yanks to force a playoff game. 1 Snuck out of the office 1.n hour early one Monday afternoon only to have my guilty conscience burdened with anger at having a Reggie Jackson home run stand between the Red Sox and a World Series berth. I cheered as Beorge Brett kept hammering balls out of the park in Kansas City and 'New' York and screamed when he kept missing balls as his teammates choked allowing the Yankess to advance to the fall classic. And now the Dodgers are sending me around the bend. The first two games of the series allowed me my only satisfaction from the whole mess since it began in mid-September. Los Angeles wiped out the. Yankees in the series' opener and won a cliff hanger in „ the second game to go into New York up two. I was giving the Yankees one win behind Ron Guidry figuring even if Guidry wasn't hot the club would play inspired ball behind him and pull it out for him. Enter Graig Nettles at third playing the corner like he was en- dorsing vacuum cleaners. The fourth game drove me up the l� wall. Reggie Jackson, a player any Yankee hater could grow to hate quickly, steps in front of a double play ball' and gets away with it and a run scores .to put the Yankees back in the game, a game I figured they didn't deserve to be in. The play seemed to take the wind out of the Dodgers' sail. Since then the Yankee killers I put my hopes in have been throwing the ball away like a • little league team and pitching beach balls that the Yankee,, bats are spraying all over the park. But the series is back on the coast and the Dodgers have a day to think about their task. If they win tonight, which I sincerely hope they do, I'll be frantic Wednesday night. I don't think I can handle another setback. My health can't stand it.The smart thing ,to do would be not watch the game, but there's about as much chance of that as . there is for me a not to b moved in some way'rby the game. Ig ess that's what it's • all aboitt, but it' not sport, it's agony. jeff Seddon i