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"Them boys on the ambulance kept telling me I was going to be fine, but when they wheeled me into that emergency room and I seen the expressions on the faces of them doctors and nurses, I got mighty concerned.  In their eyes, I could just see that they all thought I wasn’t going to make it, so I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked. 

"Well, there was a big burly colored nurse who kept yellin' Are you allergic to anything?  Sir, are you allergic to anything?  I said Heck yes I am and them doctors and nurses stopped working and listened for what it was I was allergic to.  I took a deep breath and yelled, Gravity."

Both old people laughed robustly, but their hands stayed busy as they did so.  Jeremias’ knife made his nicks, while Esther’s needles clicked.

I thought the punch line was hilarious and knew it would be included in my article.

“They still tell that story down at that hospital,” teetered Esther, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes.

Jeremias waved a wizened hand for attention.  "I chose life don’t you see.  Attitude is everything and that's a fact.”

“Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough troubles of its own. Matthew 6:34,” quoted Esther. 

“After all, today is the tomorrow you fretted about yesterday,” said the husband.  "Take this to heart, Missy.  Tomorrow you are gonna die.  You just don't know which tomorrow it's gonna be."

There was a pause while I jotted down some notes, and then looked at pre-interview notes that I had made earlier.  “I understand you were in the egg business,” again I led.

The man’s face lit up.  I sensed that now he was in a topic that he could get his teeth into.

"Well, it's a well-known fact that eggs have been greatly prized for a long, long time.  People not only eat 'em for breakfast, but they cook with them, dye them for Easter and other such things."  He settled himself into the chair for the long haul.  "When I first become a Egg Man, they didn't have no big super markets with all that refrigeration, and eggs were sold door to door.  Nowadays we take good eggs for granted, but this was not always the way it was.  It used to be that the Egg Man, the butter lady, the milk man, and so on, were each part of the family, so to speak.  It was a good solid bond and the days that those people was to come to your house was fixed." 

"Money had to be tight back then," I said.

"Well, Missy, if the family what needed eggs didn't have no money for what they needed, then accordin' to how high I stood in the family's graces, somethin' more or less special was given to me each time I come around, don't you see?"

"If they done good by Mr. Jefferson," added the old woman.

"Well," began Jeremias.  "I'm here to tell you, that if I missed a single day for some reason or other, the next time I went back there I would be as apologetic as if I had committed a mortal sin."

"He would be worryin' that his customers would think he wasn't coming no more and would buy their eggs elsewheres," added Esther.