What Day Is It, Ralphie?
by
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One day in October, Santa Claus' little elf helper, Ralphie, whose job it was to change the date on the official North Pole calendar, dozed in his chair in the cozy workshop while the rest of the elves took a work break.
As the elves began to return to work, Ralphie slowly blinked his tiny brown eyes open and stood up. For some reason as he stretched and rubbed his eyes, he mistakenly thought that everyone was coming to work...so he straightened his apron, walked to the large calendar hanging on the wall, took October 6 down and exposed the new day of October 7. Stepping back Ralphie smiled proudly as he looked at the new date. Then he returned to his small wooden chair and began to watch the miracle of toys being made by cheerful elf craftsman.
Before Ralphie had become the official calendar changer, he had done many other types of jobs in the busy workshop: filling footballs with air, painting delicate faces on dolls, assembling bicycles, to name only a few, but could not adjust to any of them. He had failed so many times that Santa Claus had been practically driven to distraction until he assigned Ralphie to be in charge of keeping the correct date on the calendar. Santa Claus had deeply impressed upon him just how important his job was and that everyone in the whole world depended on his accuracy.
Ralphie took the responsible position Santa Claus offered and for the first time in his life he was happy. He was happy because now he knew he had a job he could do and he was doing something that was important.
In fact, Ralphie had done such a good job for so many years that no one else bothered to worry about the date. If they wanted to know, they would simply as Ralphie or look at his calendar. Although Ralphie had never received an award for his dedicated service, he was highly regarded by everybody at the North Pole.
The month of October passed too quickly for many elves working in the doll workshop, but upon checking the official calendar, they saw that the new month of November had already started. Shaking their heads in amazement they could be so far behind, the elves promised to work an hour longer each day until they were back on production schedule.
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About the Book
Ralphie, an elf in Santa's workshop was the "keeper of the calendar", a very important job! One day he fell asleep in his chair; he awoke as the elves were coming back from a break. Thinking it is a new day, Ralphie tears a page off the calendar. This causes a BIG problem for the elves in the workshop.
About the Author
fred Maurice Plemmons, 1934-1999
Plemmons, author of adventure novel, Had She Not Been A Wolf He Would Have Married Her, grew up in San Diego, California. After serving a term in the U.S. Army, he returned to school at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California to become a writer. He was employed at ABC-TV in the Public Relations Department until the family moved to Alabama in the early 70's.
Through the years he wrote movie and TV scripts, short stories, stage plays, a novel and children's stories. He was a local Community TV Producer of a game show which he developed, a musical variety show and a musical hand-signing show which was nominated for the Ace Award. Two of his plays, Pilgrim from Mehelhteb and Jerusalem, were staged at a local community college.
Maurice had the ability to involve all ages and types of people including his own family in his creative endeavors . What Day Is It, Ralphie? was a collaborative effort with his sister, Faye Adams, who did the whimsical illustrations for the book. Faye has lived in San Diego all of her adult life. She loves children and volunteers for story time at a local school, taking puppets and other characters to help her entertain the children.
Maurice touched many lives and was able to inspire people from all walks of life to explore their own creative potential. Perhaps you will be inspired as well.