Eggs-Actly

 Eggs-Actly
I’d like to share some stories that were brought to my recollection; all clustered around one word, eggs. The first is about the portrait of my grandmother Rebecca Rugg Miner. It was a time when travelling photographers sold their talent door to door. I am glad that he stopped at my grandparent’s big farmhouse and cajoled my grandmother into sitting for a portrait. His pitch was that he would take a photograph and return with it in several weeks. Grandma could view it and if she wasn’t satisfied with it, she could refuse to buy it. As the story goes, Grandma had no intention of buying anything, but she donned a clean blouse, jacket and a small brooch and sat for the photo.
Several weeks later the salesman returned with a tinted black and white portrait in an oval frame. It was a quality product with her youthful face captured in the picture. Raven hair, dark eyes, and a subtle hint of a smile had been enhanced by a rosy tint on her cheeks and lips. When Gram said she didn’t have the money to buy it, the salesman continued his spiel by saying it was okay if she didn’t want to buy it, he could sell it to a bar owner to hang over the bar for patrons to view. Gram was appalled by the thought and managed to gather enough money from her egg and butter sales to pay for it. It was because of this young man’s persistence and amusing lie that portrait now hangs in my entryway. It was one thing that I managed to get when Gram “Broke up housekeeping.”
The next egg story occurred at Gram’s large farmhouse. The front porch was concrete with cinderblock half-walls and tall pillars. The porch was filled with a dark green painted wooden swing, several Adirondack chairs, and porch-boxes of flowers. The porch had many hiding places for colored eggs at Easter time. It was a game that cousins liked when we gathered for the spring holiday. Gram put a stop to the egg hide-and-seek game when she and Great-Aunt Rose were sitting on the swing. They began to smell something rotten. One misplaced egg had fallen down inside the cinderblock pillar and had been forgotten.
The last story is about my brother Ken and a cousin (she will remain anonymous to avoid embarrassment) went into my Aunt Rachel Miner Peck’s hen house. They reappeared later looking like pieces of French toast. For some unexplained reason, they decided to raid several nests and toss eggs at the ceiling. They were both covered in the scrambled drippings and eggshell pieces. My Aunt and my Mom were not happy.