[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot spent an afternoon obstructing someone’s homebrewing plans and wrote the article below for the Dec. 25, 2002 issue of the Ripsaw newspaper.]

It all started about two months ago, when my neighbor came pounding on my door with a bunch of little pumpkins in his arms. By his report, the pumpkins had sprouted up without being planted, putting him in the unexpected position of having to come up with a use for them.

You see, my neighbor is a go-getter. He’s one of those people who actually mows his lawn, trims his hedges and shovels his sidewalk. He’s the kind of person who notices when pumpkins spring up on his property.

“Look at them. Just look at them. I didn’t even plant any seeds,” he raved to me in astonishment, as if he was holding eight little baby Jesuses birthed from the Virgin Mary’s garden. “What do you think I should do with these?”

“Make beer,” I responded, as if the answer wasn’t obvious.