Talking about moments in history reminded me of a moment I experienced when I was around seven or eight years old.  My dad was doing anything and everything he could do to augment the family's income that year.  He and another man started an egg business--something that is now automated.  But back then, everyone did what needed to be done by hand.

Farmers would sell their eggs to a middle man who would clean them, size them, check for breaks, "candle" them and crate them.  That's what my dad was doing.  And of course both men were looking for all the free help they could get.  Which was me and the other guys son--Shelton.  

"Candling" was done by holding the egg in front of a light to see if it was good or bad.  The farmer couldn't tell--he just brought the eggs in.  But sometimes an egg was rotten and needed to be culled and trashed.  I got good at judging whether an egg was good or bad because every time Shelton found a rotten egg, he threw it at me.  Typical boy behavior.  If you've never been hit with a rotten egg, you haven't lived all of life's experiences.  It is the worst smell ever.  Of course, when I found one, I returned the favor.  He deserved it.

At the end of the day, I got to keep all the good eggs that were slightly cracked and could peddle them up and down our street for pennies on the dollar.  As long as they candled out ok, you could use them to cook with--and women in the nineteen forties were glad to get them cheap.  I would use my proceeds to buy an important investment--a comic book! 

Washing those eggs was another one of my jobs. I know about eggs, and chicken poop.  You can leave eggs on the counter for days and days and days.  Or refrigerate them forever.  They come in nice sealed sanitized containers.