TS_CNG/SUBURBAN/PAGES [S01] | 04/03/19
10:24 | BAUMEISTER
Abington The
APRIL 4, 2019
SuburbaN
INSIDE
Book sale snapshots See page 7
T H E VO I C E O F T H E A B I N G T O N S
AN EDITION OF THE TIMES-TRIBUNE • FREE • WWW.ABINGTONSUBURBAN.COM
A KEY DONATION
ELIZABETH BAUMEISTER Suburban Subplots
Season reads
JAkE DAnnA STEvEnS / STAFF PhOTOgRAPhER
Posing with a grand piano that will soon be refurbished thanks to a donation from the Rotary Club of the Abingtons are Abington Heights music faculty members, from left: Allison Kovell, chairperson of music department and orchestra director; Dana Cerminaro, choir director, and Rebecca Hetzel, band director.
Show to go on for grand piano BY CLAYTON OVER STAFF WRITER
SOUTH ABINGTON TWP. — The grand piano in the auditorium at Abington Heights High School shows its age. Chips in the black paint mar its finish and some cracked white keys display naked wood underneath. Music staff at the high school believe the piano, produced by William Knabe & Co., has been there since the school opened to students in 1966, serving generations of students in the music and drama departments. Please see Key, Page 10
JAkE DAnnA STEvEnS / STAFF PhOTOgRAPhER
The worn keys of the grand piano at Abington Heights High School await repair.
JULIE JEFFERY MANWARREN | SUBURBAn LIFE
Discovering talent A collection of farmland animals in all shapes and sizes flocked to the Abington Community Library last month. A pig peered out at visitors in the Ryon Room and a duckling greeted readers at the end of the fiction aisle. Brush strokes gave texture to feathers and fluff, life to eyes, and colorful backgrounds to animals usually found in a barn yard. Abington Community Library’s March artist of the month, Dorothy O’Connor, didn’t describe herself as a painter until a little more than four years ago. She learned to paint at the Deb Hamby Studio in Dalton. “I come from an artistic family,” O’Connor said. “My mom quilts, my sister is creative and crafty, and Dad is artistic too. My brother Paul can paint and is a great photographer. Paul can do anything.” It seems the artistic gene wasn’t lost on O’Connor either. On March 28, the Abington Community Library hosted “An Evening with the Artist” event that featured O’Connor’s work.
The evening was sponsored by Clarks Summit Senior Living Center. O’Connor chose pieces in a collection she titled “Farmland Friends and Playpen Posse.” O’Connor explained most of her paintings are done using a photograph as reference. The photographs are copyright free or used with permission. Other works in the collection are inspired by animals O’Connor has met in person and photographed herself. Chrissy Rimes of Clarks Summit made her way around the room attempting to guess which animals O’Connor had met in person and which she had seen only by way of photograph. “You can see the personality of this one,” Rimes said as she studied a painting of a horse. “It has something in its eyes.” As she studied another work by O’Connor, Rimes noted, “you can tell that she really attempted to capture the spirit of the animal. ... There is something about art. Something that portrays out and then pulls us in.” The smaller canvas pieces
The cracking sound piercing the air when a baseball connects with a wooden bat. The muffled clap of the same ball caught in a leather glove. These sounds can’t be easily spelled out in letters. Yet they can be summoned to a person’s memory and recalled, clear as day, effortlessly. I bet you just paused to test that theory. Or maybe you didn’t have to. If you have a vivid memory and imagination, perhaps you even took it a step further and can now smell the hotdogs and beer, feel the hard stadium seats and picture the scoreboards at your team’s stadium. Last week I wrote here about “Opening Day hits” – baseball movie recommendations. I concluded with an invitation to readers to contact me with their favorites that were missing from the list. Jeffrey Petrucci of South Abington Township, a baseball historian, wrote in with several: ■ “Bang The Drum Slowly” ■ “Sugar” ■ “Right Off The Bat” ■ “Everybody Wants Some!!” ■ “Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings” ■ “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” ■ “Fear Strikes Out” Mr. Petrucci also brought up something I hadn’t considered: baseball novels. And I’m glad he did. Because a good novel of any genre transports the reader into its setting as each chapter unfolds. Don’t get me wrong; I love watching movies. But it’s not the same as enjoying a good book. In a movie, the characters experience the story for you, while in a book, you experience the story for yourself. Like magic, the words on the pages transform into pictures inside your brain. You’re drawn into each scene as if you’re there, rather than watching it from the other side of a screen. In a movie, your imagination doesn’t have to do much work. In a book, your mind gets to do the work. It fills in the sounds of the game, the mixed smells of the concessions and the colorful sights of the stadium. Please see Seasons, Page 4
What’s inside Calendar ........................ 2 Court notes .................... 2 Contest .......................... 3 JULIE JEFFERy MAnWARREn / FOR ABIngTOn SUBURBAn
Artist Dorothy O’Connor with her husband, Sean at a meet the artist event held at the Abington Community Library. The event featured O’Connor’s collection “Farmland Friends and Playpen Posse.” The couple resides in Waverly Township. displayed by the stacks in the library gave observers an opportunity to view a collection of baby animals. These began as pieces for a nursery. “I began making these for my daughter when she was ex-
pecting our first grandchild,” O’Connor said. Varying hues of color could be seen in the faces of a lamb, bear and raccoon. Please see Talent, Page 10
Obituary ......................... 4 Churches ........................ 4 Libraries ..................... 5, 7 Just For Fun .................... 8 Sports ............................ 9
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