POST OFFICE HOTEL, MAUDE

THE FEISTY 80-YEAR-OLD woman looks at the naive, unsure 20 year old boy and tells him: “… everyone has the right to make an arse of themselves. You can’t let the world judge you too much.”

It’s 1971 and it’s one of two great lines from “Harold and Maude” a feel-good flick featuring Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon that my then girlfriend (RIP) dragged me along to.

This was the second ‘Maude’ I’d encountered. The first was our art teacher from high school, a figure of fantasy to many of us, all of whom were racked with envy and jealousy when one of our senior prefects moved in with her a few weeks after we graduated.

I’ve been using Movie Maude’s imprimatur regularly for almost 50 years although I’ve overcome the jealousy of my old classmate.

And it wasn’t until I started researching the pubs on the Murrumbidgee that I’d even heard of the namesake