Dear Folks, I came across another story that I had forgotten I had written. It was a memorable one of the 1940s. vee Exploding Root Beer November 30, 1997 One evening in the 1940s our family was sitting down to dinner together in the dining room when all of a sudden there was a loud "pop" from overhead in the attic. Mother turned to Daddy. Daddy turned to Mother. Both of them wondered what had happened and then almost in unison, they cried out, "The root beer!" Now, I wasn't involved with cleaning up the mess but I guess this is what happened. Back in the 1940s many families made homemade root beer. First of all you bought a small bottle of concentrated Hire's Root Beer extract. You mixed it with yeast, water and I don't know what else and then poured the mixture into what were originally glass ketchup bottles. You positioned the bottle underneath the metal bottle capper contraption, made certain you had the new bottle cap in the right position and then you clamped the cap tightly onto the bottle. After all of the bottles were filled you stored them in the attic and waited until the root beer ripened or aged or fermented or whatever it was supposed to do before you got to open that first bottle of homemade root beer. Now, obviously, things can go wrong with homemade root beer just as they can go wrong with homemade sauerkraut. But when things go wrong with root beer, it's like the Fourth of July! Not only is there one "pop," but that one is followed by the whole nine yards of exploding root beer all over the attic! Trust me, you better get your root beer makin's down just right before you even want to try to brew your own! But when you do, I guarantee you that it will be the best cold glass of root beer you've ever tasted!