egg equinox tried

Robbye Hoggard called me early Friday, “When are you going to start standing your egg on end?”
“I began trying a dozen at 6:30 a.m.,” I said. “By 7:30, two of them stood, the rest refused.”
By Friday, afternoon, folks were shouting, “I did it! I made an egg stand on end.!” The accomplishment has no use, but what a feeling when it happens as the students at Rogers discovered on “Egg” Friday.
Notice, I said, “when.”
Janna Tolbert called. “I was angry with that first egg that I broke it and mixed it in the muffin batter and called my friend Irene Ross.”
Irene suggested she try balancing the egg on a single layer of towel. With the towel, Janna got that “I did it!” feeling and called me.
As did others. Kay Patterson said she was going nuts. She began trying Thursday evening but could not get an egg to stand until about 8 a.m. Friday. Kay did notice, “Using only my finger nail on top to balance the egg, it makes a slow spin.”
When my husband came home, he used a towel crutch to balance 12, but by 7 p.m. half did not need a towel. We had a little army of eggs guarding our counter top.
Terry Clark said her son, Patrick Antoon, was working on his third egg as she called. HE had done it that morning at West Side Christian. I told her about Kay’s observation of the spin. As we chatted, Patrick set up the egg and reported the same slight turn.
At home, my in-resident scientist said, “put a mark on the egg and see if it always moves in the same direction.”
The eggs rotated the shortest distance it took to return the egg where it had been when I marked it. The spin has something to do with the egg balancing.
To me it feels like a bolt being screwed into position. Our bolted-down eggs did not move from Friday evening on. Wednesday morning, Kathryn Box called to say that her egg had been standing since Saturday, despite the vibrations of the dishwasher. I’m still trying to figure out what’s different this year.
The first person to report balancing the egg was John Day. I told his wife, Penny about my column before it was published. John mixed up the weekends. He tried balancing an egg on the 16th He lucked out, picked a well-balanced egg, the right time of day and the egg stood for 30 minutes. The rest refused to stand. A couple days later, he tried again and the cooperative egg stood until his sons tried to duplicate his accomplishment and shattered the egg.
A few years ago, I told Jan Cooksey about egg day. She went home and tried unsuccessfully before going to bed. At midnight she woke up, walked through the kitchen, saw the egg and tried one more time. She did it! It was the middle of the night’ everyone else was fast asleep, and would not see her accomplishment, but she didn’t care. When the ovoid balances what a feeling.
Thanks to all who tried and called. This fall I learned a lot during the equinox — when the eggs will stand on end.