Peter Leith is 89 and describes himself as “half-deaf and half-blind”, but he has never been one to dwell on his challenges. Sign of the times continues his series of true short stories and observations.
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Waiting at the bar for my small beer, I noticed a table in the corner near the door to the toilets. On the wall above it was a sign saying, “RESERVED. This is the OBP”. I asked the lady who delivered my beer, what “OBP” meant.
“Well,” she said, “years ago, a couple of old fellows used to sit there of an afternoon and it became a gathering place for the old blokes. Not far from the bar and close to the toilets. They’d sit there, have a few beers and spin each other the biggest lot of bull that you would ever hear.”
With a smile, I asked her, “But what does the sign mean?”
“Oh that,” she said. “Well, at first, because they were men and talked such a lot of bull, the sign meant ‘Old Bull Paddock’.
“And now?”
“Well,” she said, with a smile, “all we girls reckoned it was discriminatory and sexist. So the boss had it changed. Being the smart-arse he is, he says it now could mean … ‘Old Boilers’ Pen’. Sometimes I wonder why I married him.”
Do you have a story or an observation for Peter? Send it to [email protected] and put ‘Sunday’ in the subject line.
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