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 a 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 the 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 to buy it, but with a clean blouse and jacket with a small brooch. He departed after Gram’s photo was taken.

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 visage peering from the picture. Raven hair, dark eyes, and a subtle hint of a smile had been enhanced by the 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, because he could sell it to a bar owner to hang for the bar’s 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. Because of this young man’s persistence and amusing lie, that portrait now hangs in my entryway, the one thing that I managed to get when Gram “Broke up housekeeping.”

The next egg story occurred and the Miner farm. The front porch on the large farmhouse was concrete and cinderblock half walls and pillars. There was the expected dark green painted swing, several Adirondack chairs, and porch boxes of flowers.  It was a great place to hide colored eggs at Easter time, a game that happened when several cousins gathered. Gram put a stop to the hide-and-seek game when she and Great-Aunt Rose sitting on the swing began to smell something rotten. One misplaced egg had fallen down inside the cinderblock pillar and forgotten.

The last story is about my brother Ken and a cousin (she will remain anonymous to avoid embarrassment) went into my Aunt Rachel’s chicken coop. They reappeared later looking like pieces of French toast. For some unexplained reason, they decided to raid several nests and toss their eggs at the ceiling. They were both covered in the scrambled drippings. My Aunt and my Mom were not happy.