Horses for Courses
It’s a well documented fact that I think Onga Onga is the next BIG thing where small villages are concerned here in Central Hawkes Bay. It has going for it a community heart to rival many despite its small size. In years past I recall drinking champers and eating strawberries and chicken around a Board Room table as we watched that race, that stops that country, across the ditch aka the Melbourne Cup.
This year, I watched it on a big screen in the Onga pub while making very light work of some of thee most delicious home marinated mussels a girl isn’t want to share (except with other girlfriends) of course. Without a word of hyperbole, there must have been 5-6 dozen fresh-as-the-day mussels lounging around in an exquisitely light brine of mussel juice finely chopped onion and capsicum. And that was just on our table. It was lip-smacking!
There was none of the exhaustive busyness of a corporate office, Executive Secretaries running around in a frenzy as if their lives depended on it. Come to think of it, maybe it did! Not here at the Onga pub though. I loved the earthiness of the occasion. A large lightweight silver chef’s bowl plonked slap dang in the middle of our bar table. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven it was that surreal.
Pat Quinn the publican down at the Onga pub is a very quiet guy. He was looking a trifle spiffy this Melbourne Cup day. He’d donned a green hat that looked suspiciously like he’d accosted an Irish doppelganger and to his right was a local whose name I didn’t catch wearing a black and white top hat that would’ve made Noddy Holder MBE green with envy.
Pat had taken on board Mary Anne and my suggestion of getting in some pink bubbles for the girls. The business tweak worked a treat, the giggle water cantered out the gates after a bit of a slow start but hit its stride toward a nice little gallop as those female imbibers came round the bend on to the home straight. I know, Shocking!
In my opinion, Pat’s the epitome of the understated superhero in the Onga Onga community for a lot of reasons. Now superheroes are generally-speaking organised into archetypes based on their skills and abilities but some like Patrick, work independently of the rest. I’d hoped Pat would have been at the Village people meeting the other day but I suppose I wasn’t surprised when he wasn’t.
Pat’s one of those quiet achievers in the community. I reckon his support is one of the chief reasons the small Onga Onga country School is still on the map today. It’s unwavering, practical and total. A community ought to feel grateful about that given the high numbers of country schools being closed by this or that Government these days.
He supports their 7-aside rugby team, he buys the sausages for their bbq’s and he’s always loaning the School this or that piece of equipment from his business at no cost. The value derived from such in-kind support are how strategic community alliances are created. Such alliances can keep a community strong.
The Onga pub isn’t as flash as it’s recently refurbished counterpart over in Tikokino but then, it’s pointless in my mind to be making comparisons. Keeping an eye on the big picture takes the sting out of such ridiculous game plays. But let me just say, if local businesses can make themselves sustainable and work together to contribute to the economic development in their region, then more power to them! Yes business is by its very nature competitive but it can also be collective. Horses for courses, think about it.
