Today, we're going to talk about rabbits. (Don't worry, I'm not going to launch into a long tale about Volkswagens; I won't bore you with another car story.)
I'm talking about little bunnies. You know, those little bundles of fur that hop to and fro and have long ears.
Any time you mention rabbits, the first though that comes to mind is the Easter Bunny; and considering what time of year is, that's a pretty good spot to start.
If you believe any of the Cadbury chocolates TV commercials, all sorts of animals have been auditioning for the position of Easter Bunny lately. They seem to think all you have to do is to tie a pair of outlandish ears to your skull, then wiggle your nose an you've got the part.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
As any little kid can tell you, the Easter Bunny is magic. Sometime, very early Easter morning, the bunny is busy out in the yard (although he's been known to get into houses too) hiding his brightly colored eggs for the little ones to find.
Then, Easter morning, little children all over the land are out hunting through the bushes and around the edges of the yard for hidden eggs. They also often find baskets of candy and other Easter treats.
Another famous bunny that's sometimes confused with the Easter Bunny is Peter Rabbit. Peter, and his trials to escape from Mr. McGregor's gardens, is a tale that was first told in the early 1900s by Beatrix Potter, to entertain some of her little friends.
Potter gave Peter three siblings, Flops, Mopsy and Cottontail. And then, as her little children's tale increased in popularity, a cousin, Benjamin Bunny, was added to the fictional forest menagerie.
(My partner, the Lady Marjorie, is a total Beatrix Potter aficionado; consequently, there are number of books, illustrations and stuffed toy bunnies around the house. "Well, all the teddy bears have to have company," she says.)
Personally, I have a soft spot in my heart for ol' Bugs. Bugs Bunny is a Warner's Brothers cartoon character that was created by Bob Clampett after seeing Clark gable munching a carrot in the 1934 movie, "It Happened One Night."
The rabbit even won an Oscar himself, in 1958 for the best short subject, for Knighty Knight Bugs. His voice was originally done by Mel Blanc (who was allergic to carrots.)
When you mention "Wascally Wrabbits..." around my father's house, you'll get set down and told the story of the bunnies that got into my mother's garden
in Detroit.
It seems that once there was a bunny that continuously kept eating her flowers. To remedy this situation, she bought a live trap that the little rabbit would set off, steal the bait from and then escape.
To fix the trap, my father carried it with him down to one of the NASCAR racecar shops he dealt with in the Carolinas, where a bunch of engineers fussed over it for two days. They then shipped the now high-tech trap/cage back to Detroit and she finally caught the bunny.
Then, she drove 50 miles out of town to release it on the farmlands. The total cost of eliminating that little rabbit from my mother's garden had to be several hundred dollars.
Aren't you glad you've just got the Easter Bunny and a few chocolate eggs to worry about?
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