SANDPOINT - As a boy, John Elsa used to watch a neighbor work on projects in his shop. The man was older and confident in his abilities. Not cocky, just confident. He took his time and worked things out, teaching himself how to do those tasks he hadn't already learned in the past. After all, he told the youngster peering over his workbench, the first person who ever did it had to figure things out from scratch, so there's no reason I can't do the same.

Elsa walked out of those visits with a growing admiration for his old friend next door. But he left with more than that. The greatest gift, he said, has been a lifelong appreciation of elders.

"Personally, I think we put way too much emphasis on youth - way too much," he said. "We're quick to just brush off someone who's older. But when you brush them aside, you're losing a lot of intelligence from a lot of people who have already experienced what we're going through and have a more calm and rational way of looking at things."

People who know Elsa describe him as a guy who shoots from the hip and nails his target.

"If you're not prepared to get an honest answer," one of them cautioned, "you'd be better off not asking John a question."

They also paint him as a man who embodies the classic picture of the salty character with a heart of gold. With his gray ponytail, bushy beard and flair for colorful language, Elsa seems almost more like a swashbuckler who was accidentally dropped into a modern age than the licensed electrician who runs the successful business, J.E. Electric, from his home base in Sandpoint.

He is also a man blessed with the dual gifts of being able to laugh and to cry. When asked why he spends so much time volunteering to help senior citizens, he responded, with unerring comic timing: "I've always been into older women - I just never thought they'd be in their 90s." Pressed for a straight answer, he teared up and confessed that, in large part, he invests his time because he sorely misses his mom, who lives several states away in his native Wisconsin.

John Elsa serves on the board of directors for the Sandpoint Senior Center, where he spearheads fundraising activities, including this year's upcoming "An Evening of Memories" event on April 17 at the Ponderay Events Center, located next to the Bonner Mall just north of Sandpoint on U.S. 95.

The evening - which also includes live and silent auctions, followed by live music and dancing - will feature a prime rib and salmon dinner and feature presentations from Sandpoint native and Green Bay Packers football legend Jerry Kramer, along with former Denver Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer. Both speakers will discuss how Alzheimer's Disease has affected their own lives.

Tickets for the fundraiser are $30 per person, available in Sandpoint at Panhandle State Bank, AmericanWest Bank and the Sandpoint Senior Center. Money raised will go to help fund operations at the Daybreak Center. For information: (208) 263-6860.

How did you become so involved with the senior center?

Back about 6 or 7 years ago, I was working for the company that did the remodel on the center. I just fell in love with the place. It's an incredible, warm, friendly place to go. It's like having your grandmother and grandfather everywhere, you know? Of course, now, it's more like my mother's age.

It's like I found my niche. You wonder what you're put on this Earth for and I think I found it.

As a younger man, did you ever think you'd get into helping seniors?

I've never been in a situation where I didn't want to help somebody that needed some help. I was raised that way. My parents didn't have a lot of the stuff that you can go out and buy - we didn't have boats and cars and snowmobiles. But we were always involved in helping other people. I learned that from them. My father passed away in 2001, and a couple years prior to that, he got a thing in the mail from the Salvation Army. I remember him saying, "Well, we probably better send them $5."

Both my father and my mother believed that, even if you couldn't give money, you could always give a hand. So I guess that part of the apple didn't fall too far from the tree.

How do you spend most of your volunteer time?

Fundraising for both the Senior Center and the Daybreak Center so that the money is coming in, along with helping to make the decisions that go along with running any organization, handling issues that come up. I also call myself the self-appointed maintenance man for both places.

And I get to go and have lunch. I just love that.

Do you hit the lunch regularly?

Two or three times a week. One of my favorite meals there is liver and onions because, well - Sue won't cook it at home. (Laughs) So I get to go there and have it. They put out some pretty darn good food.

There were some fairly substantial structural issues at the center a few years ago. What's the current state of the building?

That's all been taken care of. The floor has been all redone on the inside; the heating system has been upgraded. The roof is at a point where we need to start thinking about getting a new roof on there and we need to get the building painted this summer.

There's always things coming up and we can handle the little issues like equipment breaking or what have you, but when it comes down to something like a new roof, it's a pretty big chunk of change and we have to weigh that out, like any business does. Can we put it off another year or do we do it now?

Does the center own the building?

No, that's another thing. It's not our building - it belongs to the city of Sandpoint. We just maintain it and pay a yearly lease on it, which is next to nothing. I think it's about a dollar a year or something.

What we'd ultimately like to do is get a facility that would house the Daybreak Center, a senior thrift store and the Senior Center, so we could have everything under one roof. We could manage it better that way, by not having one thing at one end of town and one at the other.

I have a dream. I want to win the lottery. Because if I did, I'd build the nicest senior center around and I'd put a pool in it.

What kind of relationship have you developed with the seniors at the center?

Oh, they all call me kid. And there's a lot of days where you don't feel like a kid, but in their eyes, you are. One of the things that's fun is when people bring their grandkids in. Everybody is interested in them and glad to be there with them. My daughter is coming home from Wisconsin this summer and I know that's one place I want to take her. My son works with me, so he's over there a lot helping out and Sue has been really supportive, because she knows how much that place means to me, so she lends a hand, too.

Hell, I'm getting close enough that I could be there every day! (Laughs)

People know about the lunches, but do you think there's an awareness of all the other activities going on at the center?

They have dances and potlucks on Saturdays, Wednesday night is bingo, afternoons they have bridge and pinochle, pool. They have exercise classes and line dancing.

And you should see the dances. They can move so much more freely when they're out there on the dance floor. I don't know if it's because they can hold each other up or what, but they're out there shakin' a tail feather.

Music can take you back to your youth. Even though you can't move the same way, it can take you back there and make you feel young.

Tell me more about the Daybreak Center. It has outgrown a couple of locations, hasn't it?

We're in our third place. We're out on the Kootenai Cutoff Road now and it's beautiful, bright and colorful. It's just nice to think that, if you had a loved one who wasn't able to care for themselves, they'd have a place to go where someone else could help them while you're out at a doctor's appointment, banking - or just to have a break.

Because, when you're caring for someone with Alzheimer's, it's a 24/7 operation and it's nice to have some people who are qualified to look after them and work with them. Alzheimer's touches so many people whose loved one is there, but not there.

I'm not qualified, by any means, to talk about caring for Alzheimer's. But I do know that it takes a special person with the training and the compassion and the interest to care for them and that's what we have at the Daybreak Center.

How many folks do you generally help at the Daybreak Center and the Senior Center?

The Daybreak Center, on its four days that it's open, generally has four to five people there. Some days more. The Senior Center serves over 2,000 meals a month, including the Meals on Wheels program. On Thursdays, we have over 100 people at the center sometimes and 30 or so on the other days. On Fridays, we have breakfast and there's usually 20-30 people there for that. Sandpoint Meals on Wheels serves as far away as Priest River, Cocolalla and Clark Fork.

It's not the place for everyone, but I know the ones who do go there enjoy it. When a new face comes in, people are like, "Who's that? Who's that?" But it's not long at all before they become one of the friends who are coming in to play bingo or pinochle or line dance or whatever.

You landed a couple of big names for the April 17 fundraiser. How did that happen?

It just happened that I had gone down and talked to the Daily Bee about needing drivers for our Meals on Wheels program and David (Keyes, publisher of the Bonner County Daily Bee) said he'd put something in for us. We got a response within a couple of days and one of the people who said they'd like to help deliver was Jake Plummer.

And then my neighbor up the street had a daughter whose husband had passed away from Alzheimer's and his brother was Jerry Kramer, who grew up around here and went on to play for the Green Bay Packers.

With any fundraiser, you have to have something that draws people and, with these two guys, it couldn't have worked out any better.

Besides that, I'm from Wisconsin and I went from toy trucks and cowboys and Indians right into football - and that meant the Packers.

It's a state law back there, isn't it?

Well, yes. Before you're allowed to leave the state you have to sign an oath that says you will be for the Packers for the rest of your life. It was neat for me to meet Jerry, because I got to hear the stories about Vince Lombardi and the like, along with stories about this area when he was growing up.

The Senior Center seems to be one of those causes that everybody "gets" and can get behind. Have you found that to be true as you go out to raise money?

Yeah, I think the majority of people know we need to look out for our seniors and help them - to give them a break so that they have someplace to go.

If a child is hungry, they can scream for food or they have family or a neighbor they can go to. But seniors don't ask. They give up their food to pay for their medications or the other way around. They cut their pills in half and they cut their meals in half.

My belief is that these are the people who built the infrastructure that we get to live on. It's also the greatest generation, with all the World War II veterans and the people who lived through the Depression. I mean, these are some strong people. Their generation was more inclined to step in when the neighbors were ill or couldn't support themselves.

They did what they had to in order to get by and didn't ask for any handouts. So it's nice that we can have a place where they don't need to ask for them now, either. It's just there.

You mentioned the agreement with the city of Sandpoint. Apart from that, do you feel that the center gets support at other political levels?

Well, the politicians come by when they're looking for a vote, but they don't come by afterward. That's OK - we try not to do political things, anyway. There's other places where that can be done. We just want to keep it as a wonderful place where seniors can go and enjoy themselves.

Are most of the people you meet at the center still living at home?

Um-hm. Yeah. The Meals on Wheels program is there so that they can stay at home. I experienced how important that is first-hand with my own mother. She's 91 now and she wanted to stay in her own house until she turned 90. She moved out a month later and now is in assisted living. And I don't think a day goes by that she doesn't miss her house.

What have you learned about staying young by being around seniors?

That it's good to have someplace to go where you can socialize. Because I think that's what helps keep us young - being around people our own age or a little younger or a little older.

And there's something else - something that probably comes with age. I think that when you get to that age, you start to realize that you're not going to be around forever. These are their friends, these are the people they see every day. And if someone doesn't show up, they're concerned.

This might sound harsh, but what's in this for you? What do you get out of all this volunteer work for seniors?

Just the good feeling you get from helping others. I don't know. It just feels great. That's it.

OK - and love. You know, most of those people don't know me from Adam and they don't judge. There are gentlemen who come in there who, when I first moved here umpteen years ago, wouldn't have wasted their time on a longhair. But they're glad to see me when I come in and I'm just as happy to see them. That stuff all goes away.

You walk in and here's some old fart who says "Hi" and you go over and give some old lady a hug and another one is waving to you from across the room, so you go give her a hug, too. Where else can you do that?

And I'm sure that some of it has to do with the fact that I'm 2,000 miles away from my ma.

Date of birth: Aug. 16, 1952

Family: Wife, Sue, and four children

Education: High school

Number of hours on average you work in a week: 40

Number of hours on average you sleep in a night: 7

Hobbies: Working in the yard; antiques

Favorite travel destination: Camping at mountain lakes

Favorite movie: "The Ox-Bow Incident"

Favorite book: All of them (My wife and daughter are librarians)

Favorite type of music: Blues

Favorite spectator sport (or leisure activity): Football

Any one person who most influenced your life: Bert Long, a neighbor. He was making a gun barrel one time when I asked how he knew how to do it. He said, "I taught myself. The guy that figured it out had a brain. I have a brain and I can figure it out, too."

Quality you admire most in person: Honesty

Best advice you ever received: From my father: "A man is no better than his word."

Any one thing you would say is your greatest accomplishment: My family

Favorite quote: "If you don't rock the boat, you'll never know how stable it is when the water gets rough."

Historical figure you would most like to meet: George Carlin (Oh, historical - not hysterical!)