Every workplace seems to have a resident ‘Old Fart’ hanging around, someone who used to work there years ago and is now retired, or has some vested interest in the goings on of the place. Memories blur with reality on a regular basis, ( the older you get, the better you were) and shearing sheds are a notorious haunt for such past legends.

An Old Bloke Like Me

Every old shed’s got a bloke like me,
I’m usually found by the door.
My cigarette smoke lines the roof of the shed,
My crumpled akubra near swallows my head,
All I am is my stories, the smoke that you see,
And the piles of ash on the floor.

I have no real title or job to perform,
I speak when I want you to hear.
I lean on a broom but I don’t ever sweep,
I wake up at four and by four I’m asleep,
I’m a remnant of days before union reform,
So they pay me with smokes, tea and beer.

The mornings I’m always hung over and down,
The rest is my memories it seems.
Like the time that I shore three hundred or more,
Or the day that I knocked the boss clean out the door,
The young fella’s listen, but stare at the ground,
As I recall my half drunken dreams.

I know that there’s pity in the young shearer’s eyes,
But I talk and pretend not to see.
For the yarns that I give are half lies and half true,
But they’ll become their memories and their stories too,
And that way this old shearer never quite dies
‘Cause each shed’s got an old bloke like me.

© Andrew Hull

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