A childhood belief about speaking

I was born and raised in NY, as were my parents. My teacher taught us colors in pre-school, and we had just learned "orange", and my teacher pronounced it "ohr-ange." Everytime I would say the word, my mom would correct me and say "ahr-ange." I finally concluded in my little mind that there must be a difference in pronunciation of the color and the fruit, but I didn't know which was which!!! So if I was ever asked to identify either, I would mumble the word because I wasn't sure if I was saying it right.