Roger Moroney never fulfilled his dream of being and orange carrier. Photo / File
Roger Moroney never fulfilled his dream of being and orange carrier. Photo / File
Oh, so what do the bells of St Clements say?
And what were the subjects of my unfortunately unobtained desire during Hawke's Bay's wonderful Ranfurly Shield era back in the 60s?
That time when there was generally one house in the neighbourhood which had a television set so you letthe kids there borrow anything they liked … so long as it was okay to dart down at 5 to watch Diver Dan in his black and white undersea world.
The bells of St Clements called out 'oranges and lemons', but I'll pass on the lemons for now, although not when a slice of baked fish is involved.
It has a nice colour does the orange, and a very tough skin … so tough that kids can whistle up the felt pen and draw silly faces on them without spoiling the contents.
We, the human species, gloatingly think we have the upper hand in everything of course.
We think we've got this whole evolution and technology and communications and other stuff sorted.
For Mother Nature has the ability to put food items on the shelves already wrapped.
We, the allegedly intellectually and industrially well-equipped human have to build machines and put them in factories to wrap food items for purchase.
Not Mother Nature.
Her items grow their own wrapping as they develop wonderful tastes.
So we buy them pre-wrapped, although in these commercially driven times we still have to pay for the wrapping when they are weighed for purchase.
The only thing we have done in the fruit world is modify them for customer satisfaction.
Like altering the growing lives of some fruits so they arrive without pips … which is fine and dandy.
Although pips were fun sometimes, and one of my earliest memories as a lad, back when the last of the plesiosaurs was sent packing, is sitting on the ramp at the back of our old house (now long gone) with my brothers and sister and seeing who could spit the watermelon pips the furthest.
Roger Moroney
I was only in my fourth year … came last every time.
A curious thing about the orange is that it is one of the few things which has a title which describes it.
For it is indeed orange.
The only other one I can think of at this point is the fly … which does fly.
So anyway, once upon a time I wanted to be an orange carrier.
It was a simple 10 minute exercise and as a lad barely into my teens I wasn't looking to earn anything from it.
For in those halcyon, glorious days of the shield era during the 60s, when crowds of 20,000 would roll up through the gates, the orange carriers emerged.
They carried trays of quartered oranges (skins on of course) out to the breathless troops who formed a circle around the word-wielding coach.
These days the players leave the field for 15 or so minutes for the dressing room and have their liquids and exercises and quick squizz at Facebook or whatever.
But back then they stayed staunchly on the field, sucking on their oranges, which I always aspired to one day take out to them … but it never came to pass.
Maybe there was a reason for this.
Maybe the orange carrier had to be in on it.
'It' being the preparation of the oranges.
For the dear old Magpies always seemed to be sharper in the second half, without fail.
So I now wonder whether the tray "supervisor" put one or two shots of vodka into each slice.
And I daresay the ref, who had partaken of his two slices, was always first to the tray to grab the last one left over.
They were great years, and while my orange-bearing ambition was not a fruitful one I never really got the pip.
Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist and observer of the slightly off-centre.
