Grandma’s egg basket and cornflakes from the big red rolling store

There was an handmade, split white oak egg basket that always sat on my Grandma's ironing board in the spare bedroom where I slept during childhood visits to her and Grandpa's Monroe County home in the mid-1950's.

Each morning Grandma and I gathered fresh eggs from the chicken house nests then washed and dried them and carefully placed them in the basket, which was lined with a worn dish towel softened by many washings.

The eggs stayed nestled in the basket – except for the ones used in her own cooking – and grew in number until once a week when the man with the rolling store came around. Grandma traded the valuable eggs for staples such as flour, sugar, salt and coffee.

One time I was allowed to pick something in the trade and chose a big box of Kellogg's corn flakes. I remember clutching the brightly colored cereal box, with the big crowing rooster on the front, to my chest as I climbed down from the big red truck. (Everything is "big" when you are five years old.) Our breakfast meals usually consisted of bacon, sausage, eggs, gravy, biscuits and milk. Cereal – even plain ole' corn flakes – was a very rare treat.

Rolling stores were common during those days and served the basic grocery shopping needs for folks who had no convenient means of transportation for quick shopping trips in town. I suppose today's convenience stores are the equivalent of yesteryear's rolling stores only now we feel the need for soft drinks and assorted other junk foods. I wonder if they even sell plain ole' corn flakes these days? Most of today's cereals are sugar coated and pastel colored. And it's a safe bet there are no stores around that take eggs in trade.

Grandma's egg basket and one of her cotton aprons came into my guardianship when my mom passed away a few years ago. I treasure these simple homespun items and the memories they keep close to my heart.