Sun puzzle fun

For decades the only daily crossword I had any fun doing was the New York Times', because of its cleverness and consistent high standards.

Then, thankfully, along came the New York Sun. The puzzles were as good as the Times', and often more clever. And I agreed with the editorial page to boot. (The very first issue of the modern version of the Sun had the answers to the puzzle in the last issue of the paper, which had been published many decades earlier!)

Today's Sun puzzle however was missing some clues. So I whipped off a notably bad limerick to the Sun's puzzle editor:

There once was a puzzle--what fun!
That appeared in Monday's New York Sun.
But seek though we might
Through the day and the night,
Nine clues could be found by no one.

Peter Gordon, the puzzle editor, responded forthwith:

There was a word puzzler named Peter
Who wasn't too good at verse meter
So he said, "Look below
For the clues and you'll know
It was a production error and not my fault, so now with this puzzle you can defeat her!"

57 Plain to see
58 Labor room laborer
59 Surround tightly
60 Meat in a mess
61 Hive site
62 Rasputin's refusal
64 Impolitely take
67 Tell a fib
69 New Year's ___

Sometimes small things are what make it worthwhile.