ON THE VERY first day there was a weird egg.

Actually, it was an egg within an egg, like one of those Russian matrushka dolls that pop apart, uncovering smaller, duplicate figurines. Laid by a White Rock hen, the two eggs in one were sent to Ralph Graczak by A.H. Sallee of House Springs. That was nearly 70 years ago.

Sallee received an American dollar for his effort, 1940 money, and became part of the very first Post-Dispatch comic feature known in those days as ''St. Louis Oddities.'' It was later changed to ''Our Own Oddities.'' But only the name changed. Over the years, the objects and curiosities remained constant.

Beyond its dual nature, that first egg was unusual for another reason.

It was not misshaped, like the thousands of pieces of produce that would follow in the next half century: the carrots with two well-formed legs, or vegetables shaped like Richard Nixon, the zucchini resembling French poodles, or duck-like yams. And the countless potatoes and rocks with ''faces,'' always labeled potato or rock face.

''Our Own Oddities'' ran in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 50 years. During that time,Graczak (pronounced GRAY-zak) processed enough misshapen fruits and vegetables to start a produce row of mutant edibles.

Graczak, who died in 1997 at age 87, illustrated ''Our Own Oddities'' using the wealth of weird objects, and other whimsical things, that made up the weekly feature. Odd things like the case of Vera Swanson, who was born a few minutes past 9 o'clock on Aug. 19, 1919, and lived at 1919 Montgomery Street.

Or Lynd Wilks Forguson Jr. of Ste. Genevieve, who by the age of 19 months could identify by name every instrument in a symphony orchestra.

And then there was the all-copper wash-boiler owned by Mrs. W.J. Robison of Webster Groves, which was in constant use for 27 years, without repair. This record of flawless service was surpassed by W. Happel's electric iron, pressing without incident for 37 years.

Pets always played a significant role in ''Our Own Oddities.'' There was the 11 1/2-year-old Boston bull that drank coffee for breakfast, tea for lunch and chewed gum, sometimes for half-hour stretches at a time.

Remarkable as that terrier was, the dog that could say ''I'm hungry'' was perhaps one of the most memorable ''oddities'' in Graczak's long memory.

The very nature of the oddities business meant that Graczak is besieged by unusual telephone calls. In an interview in 1983, he recalled hearing from the woman who said her dog could speak the words, ''I'm hungry.''

''There were several 'talking animals' on TV then, and I figured the woman had gotten carried away, but I visited her house anyway.''

For two hours, Graczak waited for the dog to speak, as the woman's husband, dressed in a World War I uniform, ranted at Graczak about the Post-Dispatch and its stand against a lonely-hearts club he operated.

''About 4:30, when the food on the stove was starting to smell pretty good, the dog suddenly looked up at his mistress and barked what definitely sounded like 'I'm hungry!' I snapped a picture and left. It was a very uncomfortable afternoon.''

Funny epitaphs on tombstones were another big item. Absorbed with his research, Graczak was locked in more than one graveyard.

Besides the ''oddities,'' he also designed newspaper pages and ''handled the comics'' as a staff artist for the Post-Dispatch. ''It seemed like I did the comics forever.'' Graczak would also become a fine caricaturist.

Born in Fenton in 1910, Graczak's father (and this is now an oddity) was a blacksmith. 'Att an early age, Graczak became a chronic doodler.

His blacksmith father, however, would not hear of art school; those people only become famous after they die, he said. Learn a business, said his father, Fred J. Graczak. So young Ralph got a real job, first for the old St. Louis Car Refrigerator Co., and then as a secretary to the traffic manager of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, the Katy Line.

Then, an old boyhood friend, Amadee Wohlschlaeger, a Post-Dispatch artist known simply as Amadee, told Graczak about an opening at the newspaper. ''I was scared stiff,'' he said, his ever-present cigar wagging away. ''But I told them, 'you'll never regret hiring me.' ''

Graczak retired in 1980 after 46 years with the newspaper. Well, he is sort of retired. He would stop in the newspaper office twice weekly to go through the packages and letters of oddities, from which he gathers the raw material for his Sunday comics feature.

When he started the ''Oddities'' on the first of September 1940, Graczak wasn't sure there would be enough material to sustain the feature for more than a few years. It was a needless concern.

In the first year, Graczak received from 250 to 300 letters and bundles every week. ''I had to use a suitcase to review this stuff.''

But after Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War II, ''it dropped down to about 50 letters a week.'' After the war, mail for our ''Our Own Oddities'' began to rise to pre-war levels. ''Then came TV,'' he said, suggesting that the tube took some people's minds off the gourd in the garden that was shaped like Lucille Ball.

The idea for the local feature came from Joseph Pulitzer II, the late father of the current chairman of the publishing company. He wrote a note suggesting a panel about local people. ''Besides being born, marrying and dying,'' the average person rarely gets in the newspaper, Pulitzer said. ''Oddities'' was intended to remedy that.