full time elves

Santa’s elves are at work through the year, especially at the News-Times. My morning elf dressed in blue jeans and plaid shirt with a big smile and black apron held together with duct tape. He trotted around the office taking care of odds and ends of cleaning and minor repair jobs.
When the arm of my chair kept losing its screws, Phil Owens made a screw the right length and repaired the chair so it stayed fixed. When my desk needed to be raised, he made the adjustment.
Well into his 70s that elf retired from his part time job at News-Times this past spring. Our paths crossed recently and we chatted. He was busier with volunteer work than he had been at this newspaper. I wish the morning elf, a happy, busy retirement, but I miss his upbeat attitude. And for sure, I miss his duct tape. Especially when I trip over another telephone or computer wire snaking around the room. Phil’s periodic applications of duct tape kept my path clear.
A compassionate elf was out shopping last summer when she saw a couple leftover forgotten seedling plants. As Janice Kirkpatrick tells it “those two tomato plants were so yellow and sickly. They begged for good soil, light and care. I bought them and took them home.”
Just as she has taken home unwanted or abandoned cats and dogs through the years. Some she has placed in homes, others she has kept and cared for as she did the tomato plants. Those she planted close to the trailer in the full sun and gave them a fence to climb. The tomato plants spread over the fence and flowered with happiness.
Only then did the kind hearted elf realize she had brought home one each of the beef steak and cherry varieties of tomatoes. The big tomatoes thanked her with two crops of tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes produced continually until a late frost laid them to rest.
A right cheery elf, Jean Peevy, insists on rhyming my name innumerable ways as she rushes around from one job to the next. I laugh in spite of myself and try to return the favor.
Then there are he candy elves who bless us with a share of their bounty. First it was Shea Wilson with her magical refilling candy jar. Then it was Larry McDaniel who looks like a peddler just opening his pack, when he sets down another huge sack of goodies.
One day she stopped everyone he saw offering them their choice from a huge white sack filled with peppermint candies, peanut brittle and peanut patties. If the sack of sweet goodies didn’t tempt, he offered them his bounty of canned nuts and cellophane bags of snacks.
Chocolate is my weakness, especially chocolate-covered cherries. Since Thanksgiving, Larry has kept his supply replenished regularly. I have only my weakness for chocolate and the candy elves to thank for any weight I put on this year. Bah, humbug! Who cares! Only Scrooge counts calories at this time of year. Santa’s elves are too busy doing their thing to even notice.