Any man who has lived an interesting life is apt to own a store of interesting stories that may serve to entertain friends or scare the children. I began gathering my stash at the age of 11.

The oldest of these tales illustrates an attempt to make beer in my mama’s kitchen. Several friends and I started with a German grandmother’s recipe for homemade wheat beer, a pressure cooker and three cups of flour.

It ended with a bang. When the lid blew off the pressure cooker, kids hit the floor, my mother hit the door, and my career as a brewmeister hit the skids.

Three-tenths of a second after the flour grenade exploded, Mom skidded into the room. Her face froze, then dissolved into a hundred nervous tics. Little pats of dappled batter pelted her face until tics consolidated into a matte sheet of organic cosmetics. She never asked what we were trying to cook.

Such simple questions were beneath her notice and outside the scope of her curiosity. She wanted to know - specifically - What on God’s Green Earth have you done here?

Continue reading: Days of disasters