Home Sweet Home Brew

 

The memories I have of living in "the old trailer" have flooded my mind and lifted my spirits here lately.  I have said before, I'm no different than anybody else and I have some not so fun memories.  Like the old Flatt and Scruggs song says, "I know all the good things outweigh the bad".  I lived down the hill from my grandparents for the first 10 years of my life.  I like to refer to those years as DDY and ADY.  Of course, that means During Drinking Years, and After Drinking Years!  In 1985, Daddy put the beer down and didn't drink again.  Because of that we bought a house, and had it moved to the backside of my Grandparent's property and made a nice home where I lived until I married.  Mama wasn't much of a drinker, and the only time I ever saw her with a cigarette in her mouth, was when she was mad at Daddy.  Now, he wasn't much of a smoker either, but he had a tendency to want to look tough.  Oh yeah, he was a real tough looking guy coming in at 5'6 and 130lbs (soaking wet)! During the DYs we would make 2 (sometimes 3 if it was an emergency) trips to the beer store.  We lived in a dry county and couldn't buy alcohol.  We mostly would drive to Etowah County, but on rare occasions we would go to Morgan County.  I will never forget trips to the beer store. I have always struggled with ear problems since I was a small child.  I would have ear infections on a regular basis.  Daddy would usually get home from work around 3:30 pm, and on beer run days, we would leave not long after he got home.  There were days when I had an earache so bad, I would get in the backseat of the car and lay my head down on the seat and sleep the entire way.  Those were the not so fun days.  There were other days when I wasn't sick, I was happy to take a drive.  I wasn't allowed to go in with Daddy, but he would always get me a treat.  My favorite surprise was when he would bring me a Yoo Hoo, Slim Jim, and a pickled egg.  That one makes me laugh every time.  To this day I can put a hurtin' on a jar of picked eggs.  These days I shy away from the Yoo Hoos and Slim Jims with them, but I like to enjoy them all separately.  One time we went to a different store.  I was just learning to read, and I asked Mama, "what are cold bevers?".  She said, "WHAT?"  I asked her again what cold bevers were.  Confused, she said she didn't know what a cold bever was and asked me where I saw it.  It told her it right there on the side of the building.  She read the sign, and it said, "Cold Beverages!".  Still to this day when we pass that old building, I think about the cold bevers the sold.

  

My uncle, who was my Mama's Sister's husband, loved his beer too.  I can still smell him right now.  He ALWAYS had a smell of beer on him and I'm not sure it didn't ooze from his skin acting like cologne due to the amount he drank.  The difference between Daddy and my uncle was my uncle made his own beer.  He was a pro at this process, and never seemed to make a mistake.  I Daddy would have admitted it, he was quite envious of Uncle D for being able to create such a product.  Daddy and Uncle D worked at the same place, but Uncle D was "fancy" because he worked where the air conditioning was!  Daddy worked in the nastiest unhealthy places in the plant.  He had watched Uncle D come home from a hard day's work and have beer on hand with never having to take the Oregon Trail to buy what he drank.  One day Uncle D talked Daddy into making his own home brew!  He walked him through the process and gave him all of the pointers he could give.  Daddy went to the store and bought all of the supplies and came home to get started.  He used a SMALL bedroom we used for a closet as his laboratory.  After he got everything set up, the room resembled a high school biology lab.  Just to be honest, there was probably more success produced from that school lab than came from that closet.  Daddy needed one more item he had forgotten at the store, so of course, we loaded up in the Zephyr and headed out.  After we got home, he began putting the ingredients together and just all around making sure everything was secured and processing nicely.  A couple of days later I was dancing around the house in my favorite clogging shoes when I heard a boom.  I dropped to the floor because I knew our gas stove had blown up from my dancing showcase!  When everything was deemed ok, I went back to clogging down our hallway again.  The smell hit me first, then I noticed my taps stopped tapping.  Before my eyes could look to the floor, my feet flew out from under me, and I found myself in a pool of soured water.  I looked to my right and saw the laboratory had exploded!  There was soured liquid shooting straight up in the air and foam rolling out of the plastic tubs.  Mama had realized what was going on and she started her war chant like our ancestors did before going to battle with the neighboring tribes.  She started a frenzied fit of throwing towels and yelling for Daddy using words that had nothing to do with "I love you".  Before Mama's frantic clean up attempt started, she grabbed me by the arm and started to drag me from the battlefield just like a proud soldier would by not leaving his war brothers behind.  I was screaming and crying because I was soaking wet in this rotten smelling liquid, but mostly I was upset because my tap shoes had gotten wet and wouldn't tap with the rattle like I liked.  Daddy walked in and got a glimpse of his lab.  He splashed through the carnage like a road runner running from a coyote!  He had the big tub in one hand, a bucket under his arm, with another bucket in his other hand.  Just like when Mama had thrown out his favorite ceramic horse, Daddy was throwing buckets out the front door with all his strength.  After the mess was cleaned, and Mama had prayed for forgiveness for calling Daddy names that hadn't been created yet, they were able to gather their thoughts.  It took Daddy about 30 seconds to realize what he had done wrong.  He had decided he did NOTHING wrong, and he was the victim of a set up by Uncle D because he didn't want Daddy to succeed with anything because after all, Uncle D worked in the "fancy" part of the plant.  The more Daddy thought about it the madder he got.  Just when he couldn't take the thought of being set up by his brother-in-law anymore, he flew out of his favorite green Naugahyde chair, and stormed out the front door like a junkyard dog and headed down the hill to Uncle D's house chomping and snarling his lip.  Mama was yelling at him from our yard, but Daddy ignored her.  He was dead set to drag Uncle D out of his house and teach him a good lesson.  Uncle D had heard the commotion from our house and saw Daddy stomping toward his house.  Uncle D decided it was in his best interest to run inside and lock the doors.  Just as the front door slammed shut, Daddy started in.  He called Uncle D every ugly name he could come up with, but it had no effect on the locked door. He told Uncle D to come outside and take his medicine.  Uncle D and my aunt were standing behind the door laughing, which made Daddy even madder.  Keep in mind, Daddy was nowhere near the tough guy he thought he was, and Uncle D was less of a fighter than Daddy.  In reality Uncle D would run from Daddy, but if Daddy had caught him, it would have been nothing more than two first graders fighting on the playground.  With defeat in his eyes, Daddy marched up the hill toward home.  He told Mama to get in the car because we were not living in a place where he was going to be treated like that.  My tap shoes had dried by then, and Mama was settled down.  I grabbed my General Lee car (with my tap shoes still on) and loaded up in the Zephyr with the two bags Mama had packed for us.  Daddy cranked the car and revved the engine.  I guess he thought the rattle from the engine and the cloud of smoke from the muffler would teach Uncle D a lesson and show him he couldn't show his face again without the chance of getting his comeuppance.  We left the driveway with lifters knocking and smoke billowing.  While we were passing Uncle D's house, he and my aunt were standing on the porch waving.  Daddy gave them the finger and stomped the gas a little harder.  He was set and our bags were packed!  We were leaving the state, and nothing could stop us!  We made it over the road and circled the cemetery two or three times.  We eventually ended up at "Pecker head's" house.  This was Daddy's favorite bootlegger that actually had a drive through window on the side of his single wide trailer.  If you could drive through the graveyard of rusted cars, you had made it to the window, where he would hand your "package" down to you from the window.  After making his purchase, we drove back to Turkey Hop and went back inside our house.  I was so upset because I just knew we were going to a new place, and I was going to tap my happy self over every inch of the town.   The house still smelled of sour mash, and the supplies from Daddy's home brew laboratory were laying scattered in the front yard like a tomb raider had just raided a pharaoh's treasure chamber.  After his visit with Pecker head, he felt MUCH better, and decided to forgive Uncle D.  After the eruption of Mount Saint Home Brew, Daddy never attempted to make his own drink again.  This was a plus for me, because I knew I would get my pickled eggs, Slim Jims and Yoo Hoo's again.  What more could a kid ask for?