Time for something local . I miss the Rose & Thistle in Brampton. It was a friendly, convivial place, jam-packed with "charactors". I have never seen so many a single joint.
This was back in the days when Double Diamond on tap was pretty exotic and I enjoyed a number of glasses poured by Leslie, who is probably my all-time favourite barmaid. When Josie sold the business to open a place in Oakville the general tone of the place dropped pretty quickly. You never had to endure tables of drunken fools under Josie's watch.
Not that there weren't "incidents". There was sort of a scrap one night between two tipsy Scotsmen but no punches were landed as they were leaning shoulder to shoulder holding each other upright. The next day they were standing side by side at the bar, chatting amiably as if nothing had happened. Likely if you had asked, neither would have recalled anything amiss the night before.
A decade later when I was working in Oakville I dropped in to Josie's new place but I didn't see her. I saw a lady who looked suspiciously like Leslie but she didn't look old enough to have been serving beer even a couple of years ago so I guessed it was a relation - or maybe Leslie takes particularly good care of herself.
These days there is still a pub in the same location and while the people were nice the one time I went it didn't have the charm of the Rose & Thistle. Few places ever did.
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