Interesting Times

As one reaches one’s dotage one finds the greatest of pleasures in the humblest of activities.

Gone are the great events of the past—the road-trips, the late-night poker, party crashing, the unrestrained (and restrained) sex and not caring what scotch one drinks.

They have been replaced with reading the Rodney Times.

Now I know this is not everybody’s cup of tea (another new-found pleasure), but the Rodney Times can be an interesting read. As a newspaper serving a largely rural area it gives insight into the lives and activities of a disparate if somewhat smug community.

I can take any edition as evidence of this. Yesterday’s for example. The lead story is an armed robbery of a bar not far from here, and under that story, on the same page, RT trumpets the lowest recorded crime in 15 years. The juxtaposition shows the editor has sense of humour.

But like so many things it’s only when we take something further that it gets interesting. The Kumeu Volunteer Fire Brigade is hosting a hoedown night, the mayor sat in a chair in Warkworth, Wellsford Kindergarten has a three-day (!) pumpkin festival, and we are told that on May 5 and 19 there will be ukulele lessons in Orewa—one is required to bring one’s own ukulele, though practice ukuleles are available for those not so endowed. I have bought mine.

As if to prove that even Rodney has a seedy undercurrent, we are told in the headline on page 15 that there is a Chery (sic) ripe for plucking. Unfortunately, that is another of those events now beyond my capacity and ability. With that as an appetiser though, one inevitably gravitates to the classifieds. If one is looking for raunchy escort ads one is disappointed, “Hire a Hubby” doesn’t quite mean what you think. But you can still get an Aurora Psychic Reading (“the best in New Zealand”) and whilst I am devastated to read that I have not won the Kaipara College Easter Raffle, it was at least won by Fryday reader Leigh Wilson, and Mr Mike Walker is happy to add the piano to my ukulele tuition.

The untutored may well think that reading a paper such as the Rodney Times is like a trip to Hamilton. But, I submit here, that is unfair. A trip to Hamilton is never great, never humbling, and certainly never a pleasure.

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