Dorothea Straus
THE MAGNIFYING GLASS
The smell of malt always came first- a surfeiting, meaty
smell that was almost like taste-it assailed the nostrils before the
brewery came into sight. My son, John, and I were driving through
the shabby, anonymous back streets of Brooklyn. "Will we be there
soon, now?" he often asked. This was our first visit to the brewery
in several years, and though at his present age of eight, he could
laugh tolerantly at his former babyish impatience and eagerness to
see the sights, the drive was monotonous- and any trip held the
promise of something exciting ahead.
He was holding his nose. "It stinks," he said unceremoniously.
"Get me out of here."
"That's the beer cooking. I rather like it," I said.
We passed the loading depot, where the great yellow trucks were
lined up like patient beasts of burden. John had his head out the
window, counting, "Twenty-one, twenty-two--go slow- Wow! There
must be a million." He scratched the tan quills of his crew cut in
amazement.
An
unfamiliar red brick building came into sight- could we
have taken a wrong turn? The three old houses should be here. I
remembered them well, from past visits stretching back into my child–
hood-stolid middle-class, Victorian relics, preserved intact in the
midst of the expanding brewery. Then it came back to me;
my
father had told me that the site of his boyhood home was now a
bottling plant, modern in all ways, complete with every shining
gadget. I felt a wave of resentment at the change, as though an old,
well-loved servant had been replaced by a robot.
I sniffed the satisfying smell of malt-at least nothing could be
done to change that! Why, it must have been the same more than a
