 | NORML News: Kiaora Charlie! |
 By Jonathan Rennie
NORML News gives maximum respect to Hawkes Bay man Charlie Ropitini, an honorary freedom fighter who died from a heart attack in August 2002, aged 66.
For the last 12 years all the NORML News delivered to Paki Paki, Hastings, came through Charlie’s mailbox at Kaki Rawa Flats.
Charlie relished his gate-keeper role in the marijuana movement.
“My old man was a Maori-Man from the old school!” says his son Johnny, local NORML contact. “Fencer, freezing worker, shearing contractor. He got a buzz from delivering the mags along with the rest of the family mail. He used to say, ‘Hey, you got some of those wacky backy mags come in?’”
But Charlie was a hard-won ally. Never a toker himself, in his 40s he was one of the district’s most outspoken critics of marijuana. But surrounded by younger men who toked, and with plenty of opportunity to observe the effects of the herb and compare it with alcohol, the “old fella” gradually changed his views. He came to accept marijuana and helped make it possible for NORML to exist in Paki Paki.
“To see him mellow out over the years was a real good buzz,” says Johnny. “All his mates were old school too, truckies, fishers, hunters, pissheads, y’know? and they developed a kind of No.8 wire humour about drugs and drink.”
These men, and younger fellas like Johnny, used to gather regularly at Charlie’s house on Kaumatua Flats, which came to be known locally as the Round Table. Johnnie Walker’s Red Label was the drink of choice. Much of the conversation was in Maori and vital topics were discussed, such as marijuana law reform and the hypothetical formation of a Paki Paki Communist Party.
Although toking was not allowed inside, Charlie was happy for the boys to roll up at the table. Indeed, he sometimes encouraged it. Apparently one property of the herb he had observed was its power to help young chatter boxes to stop and reflect.
Charlie met Nandor in the days of the Freedom Bus Tour when it rolled up in Paki Paki. “He didn’t show much emotion, being a Maori-Man,” says Johnny, “but we all knew he buzzed out when the Dread got in the House.”
He recently had further cause to smile when Green MP Metiria Turei entered Parliament. She is from Ngati Kahungunu, like the Ropitinis.
Charlie was born in Nuhaka, near Wairoa, in 1936, where he attended the local Native School. He married Johnny’s mother, Mary, at 22 and they had 9 children: 5 girls and 4 boys. She died in 1990. He enjoyed his latter days in common law marriage with a younger partner nicknamed “Not the Momma,” with whom he had 2 boys and a girl. RIP.
|
|
|
|
| |
| Login |
|
You can register for some special extra features. | |
| Article Rating |
Average Score: 5
Votes: 3
| |
|
