55°

It seems we've had plenty of winter, even though really cold only a few times, but still with lots of blustery wind and rain and snow. For an older person, unfortunately, winter seems to last longer each year.

Now, we have the wonders of springtime. As Geoffrey Chaucer said more than 600 years ago, as he began his "Canterbury Tales," "Whan that April with his shoures soote, the droghte of March hath perced to the roote."

Or in modern English:

"When that April with its sweet showers has pierced the drought of March to the root."

Before leaving winter finally behind, I'd like to repeat a marvelous Christmas tale that I received from a fine writer and historian, Bob Pegues, of Tenakee Springs. He writes of a time about 55 years ago.

I was a part-time columnist then, working for the Juneau Empire, delivering my stories to the old, wooden building on Second and Main streets, so I knew Bob's mother, Dorothy, who was a famous newspaper woman. As I recall, the chief editor of the daily,was Elmer Friend.

In those days, a newspaper office was a place of wild sounds, produced by the clatter and rattle of the linotype machine. The linotype was very large, about 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide. An operator sat on a stool before a keyboard typing in the copy. At the end of each sentence he used a crank to go to the next line. The machine created the metal letters from brass dies or matrices. The stories were assembled on large plates and printed.

This was a great improvement from Benjamin Franklin's day in the 1700s when the type was set by hand. Today it is much quieter with the benefit of the wonders of the computer age.

Here is the Christmas story by Bob.

"Isn't it strange, remarkable even, how some singular event comes flooding back to mind, as unbidden as it is welcome.

"Christmas was fast approaching. I was probably 12 or 13. I had been working odd jobs to buy Christmas gifts.

"Saturday found me walking on Second Street towards Mom's office at the Alaska Sunday Press, where she was editor and publisher. My purpose was to deposit a twenty dollar bill earned shoveling snow, and there was a lot, it seems to me now, of snow to shovel.

"When I got to Mom's office and reached into my pocket for the twenty, it was gone. How proud I had been of my prowess in earning that much through a week's effort, and how crestfallen I became over my loss. As moms are apt to do, she wiped away my tears with her comforting embrace.

"She wrote a popular column, 'To speak of many things,' and though the deadline was near, included the incident, without my name, in that week's issue.

"Monday morning, a gentleman walked into the office and presented my mom with a twenty dollar bill, which he said he found in the snow in front of the American Legion dugout, right along the path I had taken. Had he found it, or had he been moved by mother's caring way of relating the story of my misfortune?

"I never knew, but realize now, in him dwelled the spirit of Christmas , for what was lost was found."

• Lifelong Alaskan Elton Engstrom is a retired fish buyer, lawyer and legislator (1964-70) who lives in Juneau.