Replacing The Cream - A Short Story

Replacing the cream.  

It’s 1:30 am and the last of the coffee bar stragglers have left the building. Re-purposing the cream cakes for the next day by scooping out the old cream and piping in some new is a nightly chore.

There’s usually a spatula for this purpose but it is in the vibrating commercial dishwasher out back so a surreptitious finger will have to do.

Not that there’s anything really wrong about this practice; after all what the customers don’t know don’t hurt them.

The folk singer was terrible tonight.  Not sure where the boss finds them, but they are mixed bunch, all singing Bob Dylan with a nasal pitch, or croaking plaintive Irish Republican songs whose lyrics they don’t really understand.

The coffee bar is on the corner of The Square, the city’s main and only redeeming feature.  This cafe plays second fiddle to a much larger coffee bar several blocks away that is the habitat of Teacher College students.

Hang on a minute, this cream looks a little rancid?  Or is it just yellowing with age?  Time for a quick taste test.   No, it seems OK although the cream pressure gun could probably do with a good clean.

Don’t have time to do it right now as there are other things to tick off before final lock-up.

A quick check of the pie warmer.  There’s a steak and mince that has seen better days.  The crust is as hard Palmy’s railroad tracks, but the boss says its OK if I take the old ones for my own consumption.

There’s also steak and kidney although you’d need a microscope to spot any kidney in the filling.

Think I’ll take a couple and throw them through the windows of the women student’s hall down the road.  They always appreciate a bit of sustenance even if it is an ungodly hour of the morning.  Bit of gravel thrown on a lower window usually gets a result although you need to keep an eye out for matron or passing police patrols who might misconstrue the intention.

Ah... the float.  How I HATE doing the float!

Maths was never my strong point and its even worse now that the cheap calculator’s battery has died.  Why is it that I am always 20 cents out in the tally?  I’m not going to mess around at this time of morning.  I’ll put in the money from my own pocket to get the balance.

It is now 2am and I have a lecture at 8:30 this morning. Check and turn off the electrical appliances. Ready the alarm.

Maybe I’ll take pity on customers and take that lamington with me to much as I head home.

After all I’ve just filled it with fresh cream.

Roger Smith
May, 2109

An Art Awakening

Yours truly at right on a potter's wheel in the PNTC art department. (Dianne Foley at left?)

When I first went to Palmerston North Teacher's College in 1967 I majored in music.  But I found both the tutor and the curriculum rather boring and far more exciting things appeared to be happening in the Art department under the tutelage of Frank Davis and Ray Thorburn.

My good friend John Brebner who I played rugby with for College was also studying art, and I recall visiting his lodgings and seeing him plugging away on a painting.

I decided that the visual arts (and particularly sculpture) were far more appealing than banging on a triangle!

Te Kooti Inspires His Warriors - F. Davis 

Frank Davis, who later became my mentor and a close family friend, agreed to me changing my study major from music to art if I produced a satisfactory portfolio over the Xmas break -  which I did.  (The painting at left is one of Frank's Te Kooti series.  I bought it off him when I was teaching in Rotorua and sold it much later at auction when I was shifting cities. Still have one of his drawings from this series)

Prior to Teachers College I had never really shown any great aptitude or motivation where the visual arts were concerned but I took to it like a duck to water.

It was a decision that changed my life and to this day the visual arts have dominated my life -  the creative beast unleashed!  A career as a secondary school art teacher followed after two years as a primary teacher.  Then a three stint as head of a regional art school in Papua New Guinea.  Several years where also spent as a Director of NZ art Museums in Hawke's Bay and Waikato (with a dash of museum marketing at the NZ Maritime Museum in Auckland thrown in)

I exhibited painting, prints and sculpture along the way before moving in to digital art later in life.

But all of this life started back in the Grey Street art department of Palmerston North Teachers College.

NB: The woman in the top photograph appears to be Di Foley from Wanganui who sang in a folk singing truly with Tom Hunter and myself.