MARCH 16, 2021 – Hanneys were unusual for our insular town, which straddled the Rum River where it debouches into the Upper Mississippi. Father Hanney spoke with a Welsh accent, and his wife Nell talked with an English one, though I couldn’t distinguish between the two accents. To my young American ears, the older Hanneys simply didn’t pronounce their “r’s,” an effect that suggested high intelligence.
The three Hanney kids talked “American” despite odd names and “r-less” parents. The two older sisters—Gwynneth and Bronwyn—were way above average. They shared my own older sisters’ disposition for words and theater production. Derwyn, the younger brother, was too young to be writing and staging multi-act plays as our sisters did, but I could tell he was no dummy. After all, he was a whole year older than I, which guaranteed that he was a whole year smarter. Plus, Derwyn owned a pedal-car and let me drive it but only to the end of the sidewalk.
Father Hanney was a ball of fire. He talked energetically, laughed spontaneously, sang boisterously, and played accordion abundantly. With a pipe in his smile, he oil-painted—still lifes and landscapes. Several of his works adorned our house and one—of the old Anoka County Courthouse—hung in my dad’s courthouse office. Cyril, as my parents called the Welshman, was a rousing rector who could deliver a sermon with as much gusto as David Lloyd George on happy pills. Often, it seemed, Mother laughed out loud during Father Hanney’s pulpital oratories.
Nell was quieter but just as kind and friendly toward us all.
Our families spent lots of happy times together.
Things got even happier when the Hanneys shared their ginger beer recipe. My parents went whole hog, investing in bottles, a mechanical bottle-capper, and other equipment. Every couple of weeks Mother and Dad turned our modest kitchen into a full-scale brewery. The bottled beer then got stored on narrow shelves on the wall next to the basement stairs.
We consumed the brew at leisure—and shared it plentifully during Hanney visits. I thought our friends were pleased that we’d adopted their taste so enthusiastically.
One evening Mother and Dad plus a sister or two and I happened to be in the kitchen when all hell broke loose on the other side of the basement door. An opening explosion set off a chain reaction—the sound of glass being blown to bits.
Always knowing what to do, our parents also knew, in that moment, what not to do—open the door. In the pregnant silence after the cataclysm they maintained their frozen positions. Seconds later, a final explosion and the sound of falling glass capped the Battle in the Basement.
Only then did Dad cautiously open the basement door as Mother peered over his shoulder.
“Wait’ll we tell Cyril and Nell,” one of them said, as over-fermented liquid dripped in the background.
And that was the end of ginger beer.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
