The Ecphorizer

Fair is Fair
Charles Colvin

Issue #06 (February 1982)

I spent the summers of 1898 and 1899 an my grandfather's farm in Massachusetts. A memorable weekly treat was the trip by horse cart into Sterling Center, to trade butter and eggs for merchandise at the Mitchell and Sawyer General Store. In those days most transactions went by barter.

On the way home from one of these trips, my grandfather told me about a neighbor who had gone to the store to buy his wife a pair of knitting needles, for which the proprietor accepted an egg. It was the custom after each transaction, no matter how small, to offer the customer a drink; so Mr. Mitchell asked the farmer, "What will you have?" He replied, "A whisky with an egg in it." Mr. Mitchell was not happy to give up the egg he had just taken in trade, but nevertheless poured the whisky and broke the egg into it. When the farmer saw that it was double-yolked, however, he said: "Mr. Mitchell, I think you owe me another pair of knitting needles!"


A man of many parts, Colvin prints his writings on his own nineteenth-century letterpress. He figures in the development of aviation in America and knew Charles Lindbergh. 

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Definitions Webster Overlooked
Myra Johnson

Issue #06 (February 1982)

Aspirate:

Crowd of nudists walking by

Attention:

Stay away from Bo Derek

Peer Review:

Checking out male nudists

Racket Ball:

Organized prostitution

Taxi:

Those who pay the IRS 

 


Johnson works for a computer graphics company and has been active in SFRM for many years.

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