[mew-int 02065] mew says PGP "public key is expired" but gpg says it is not

[kevin]

I am trying to use GnuPG w/ mew 4.2.

I have been unable to encrypt a message for anyone other than myself.

I have imported the recipients public key into my public key ring, and when I query it with gpg
it shows that it never expires:

$ gpg --list-sigs --list-options show-sig-expire

pub   1024D/7A23B1FC 2005-05-25
uid                  Myron Shak <shaka at example.com>
sig 3        7A23B1FC 2005-05-25 never       Myron Shak <shaka at example.com>
sub   2048g/5DF70036 2005-05-25
sig          7A23B1FC 2005-05-25 never       Myron Shak <shaka at example.com>

But when I try to encrypt a message to that address mew refuses to encrypt it,
giving me the error message:

  "His/her public key is expired"

I have successfully sent encrypted email to myself, my key was recently generated (within 24 hours).

I have successfully decrypted messages sent by others using my public key.

Has anyone else had this problem?  Is there a fix?  Is there a workaround?

thank you!
kevin