One Summer......

.......way back when I was just a wee lass no taller then a blade of grass growing on top of an ant hill, (of course combining the two heights together, of A: the ant hill plus B: the grass to equal C: the height of me) my Momma made root beer.
SHE MADE ROOT BEER!
She might as well have called down the sun to do her bidding, whistled up the wind at her command, made animals talk in french.....it was THIS miraculous to me that my very own mother MADE root beer!!!!
In modern times, meaning now, I know that anything and everything can be figured out, made or ordered off the internet. Great gobs of information are just floating around out there in cyber space from "how to please your man in 3.7 seconds" to "making cheese at home, the easy way". So the idea of making root beer or any soda for that matter doesn't seem so crazy, so unattainable, so far beyond my capabilities, not when the internet is at hand and I can google a topic to death within 2 minutes of thinking it up.
BUT this was back in ancient times, meaning BEFORE the internet....
And my Mother just MADE root beer, right out of the blue! Well I mean there were details and a method and ingredients and all that wonderful stuff that I am sure is involved with making root beer. But I don't remember any of that, not with the sweet song of "MOM IS MAKING ROOT BEER" singing in my head. Oh what a tune....it's volume only lessened by the warnings from my Mother that making root beer was NOT an instant gratification type process...it took....TIME.
ack!
TIME, the death knell of any child's enthusiasm. ack, why do things always take TIME when you're a kid. Why even bring up the wonderful possibility of HOMEMADE root beer if it's going to take time???????????? If you mention root beer I want it now, like any normal kid. Patience is for doctors not a young girl in the middle of the summer with root beer lust clouding her brain..
BUT once more the root beer tune wove it's sweet melody through my brain as the details of making root beer were put into action.
Beer bottles were gathered...from where??? I don't even recall, perhaps making root beer involved one great big beer drinking party for the parents...a ha...perhaps this was the motivation behind THEIR root beer making enthusiasm!
New bottle caps were bought. Shiny silver bottle caps that were more precious then any jewelry could be. I was astounded by the brilliance of my Mother. SHE knew where to BUY brand new unused bottle caps, when I hadn't even known a thing like that was possible??????
After that the root beer making process is a blur.....with the only thing standing out in memory being the glowing orange Hires root beer box that contained some magical mysterious ingredients that would be transformed into....root beer. ahhhhhhhhhhh...home made root beer.
Then that nasty downside of the whole process came into play.....time...ack. I remember we had to leave the bottles alone for some length of time. It felt like years, it felt like I was being told I couldn't have any precious home made root beer till I was an old woman. In reality it was probably only a few weeks or so but it might as well have been yeeeeeaaaaaaars.
It was summer and the days were slowly ticking by with school looming ahead in the future. And I was slowly being tortured. I wanted summer to last forever and school to stay a vague distant idea in front of me, forever always 2 WHOLE months away! BUT.....I wanted root beer....homemade root beer.....root beer that could ONLY be had after some miserably long length of time had passed. I believe I may actually have created some sort of rip in the fabric of time and reality with my conflicting prayers that summer. For time to slow down and crawl by so school would never arrive....for time to speed up and pass in a blur so I could get my hands on homemade root beer from a REAL beer bottle........
I'm not sure if I did rip the fabric of reality but I DID get to go on a mini vacation to my Grandma Prest's for a whole week! Going to Grandma's place meant biscuits and molasses, a big Red Dog named Benson and walks down Pembrook road so I was pretty satisfied with those arrangements. What better way to pass the time awaiting for homemade root beer then with your Grandma and a big Red dog??
I don't remember very much about that particular visit with Grandma Prest, it was fun as always...there was indeed biscuits and molasses to be had every day..... but eventually the week passed and I returned home. More anxious to hear news on the root beer then even to see my own Mother.
The way I remember it....and so it must be true......I asked if the root beer was ready yet and could I have some.
I don't know how I can finish this....you do not want to know what the answer to my innocent root beer lusting question was......
They drank it.
I thought it was a joke.
Surely if it had been ready during the week I was GONE they'd have saved me ONE bottle.
Nope.
NO JOKE
and worse....NO HOME MADE ROOT BEER for me......
*sigh*
Oh there were *excuses* and most of them valid I'm sure.....at least that's what I tell myself. One can't disown their own family for enjoying home made root beer with out you and not saving you even a drip...not even a half a drip...can one???
Well I didn't....and I got past the heart breaking disappointment...almost.
But I tell you this.....NO root beer will ever taste as good as that root beer I never got to have.
I'm sure if I'd had a taste of that home made root beer it would have been good...perhaps even GREAT! But I know this for sure, there is NO way that root beer could have been as delicious as I know it was by never having had it....It's aura increases with each passing remembrance of it. The family enjoyed mediocre homemade root beer that NEVER got made again...but for me, I missed out on superbly divine root beer that I am sure tasted like ambrosia and grows in flavor fabulousness with each passing day!
I think perhaps I will go bake a cake now and throw it out. Just so I'll have missed the opportunity of eating the most decadently delicious cake that ever existed, which sounds a lot better then scarfing down semi o.k. cake that was a little dry.