Known for their Nice Ears

Saturday 9 March 2013 - Filed under Writing

Bunnies
by Marilyn Brandt Smith
From my book: “Chasing the Green Sun”

When I was a child, my Easter basket was always crowned with a fuzzy stuffed bunny, usually pink, sometimes with a music box inside, and always with ears twice the size to be anatomically correct. Riding home from the School for the Blind on the Greyhound, one Thursday before Easter, a nice lady gave me a huge hollow chocolate rabbit, and I ate him all the way home. That was before we learned not to take candy from strangers. That was before we had to worry about weirdos.

We danced the Bunny Hop in school, read “The Tortoise and the Hare,” and believed that rabbits foot charms and keychains brought good luck. I wasn’t really into Bugs Bunny or Harvey and other cartoon or movie characters, but I did play Mrs. McGregor one year when our class performed the famous Beatrix Potter story for the whole school. Today my cute little six-year-old telephone friend in Michigan talks about the Max & Ruby show on TV. They lead much more sophisticated lives than Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.

Our ranch in south Texas had lots of rabbits who harmed no one, so my dad would make up good descriptions about their varied colors, and their work, hiding eggs for the children along the ranch road. It made me sad when I learned that farmers and gardeners shot rabbits just because they were helping themselves to part of the crops.

At twelve, I had the prettiest Easter dress of my childhood. It was white organdy with pastel trim, a peasant neckline, and a ruffled hooped skirt. I insisted on a bunny-shaped purse to match. That same year, a company in Austin donated Easter candy, after the holiday, to the dorms at the School for the Blind. We ate rabbits and eggs until school was out.

In college, my sorority had a sunrise breakfast, then we went to pet some rabbits at the farm home of one of the girls. I held carrots and cabbage leaves out for the big bunnies to snatch, and cuddled one of the little ones on my lap. They reminded me of kitty cats, but I just couldn’t get them to purr.

First jobs and first rides in a Volkswagen Rabbit came along. We had rabbit ears on our TV’s, and “Playboy Bunnies” took center stage. There were bunny slippers, and Annie’s Homegrown even makes bunny-shaped macaroni. The rabbit test to determine pregnancy is long gone, but everyone knows those critters have no trouble with multiplication.

Once my daughter’s rabbit fur jacket was partially eaten by my husband’s guide dog. Unlike the song, he had caught a rabbit, and he was no friend of hers, sorry Elvis. I cooked my first rabbit as an adult. “Tastes just like chicken,” well, almost. Later, I helped raise rabbits for a pet shop. One of our breeders had baby bunnies on Easter morning. A big guy named Tex wanted to be part of the family. He broke out of his hutch one day, and followed me around the house. I didn’t know how to train him, but gave him lots of love until he had another home.

One of our drivers, Pam Hare, decorated her baby nursery in, you guessed it, yellow rabbits. Did you catch the car commercial a few years ago where Elmer Fudd tells the public, “I used to hunt wabbits, but now I hunt webates”? I have a Canadian friend who wrote a book, “When a Man Loves a Rabbit.” Mark and Deborah are his personally-trained house rabbit companions.

Rabbits aren’t much verbal company, but did you know there are actually show rabbits? Tallest ears? Puffiest tails? They’ve inspired a few songs. I had fun teaching my granddaughters to sing “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” Somehow, over the years, I forgot the words to “Edgar the Eager Easter Bunny.”

Believe it or not, at Summer camp they still do the motions and sing “Little Bunny Foo Foo.” I found little Foo Foo recently in one of those catalogs where everything sings, talks, or screams obscenities at shoppers. She’s green with a big white cotton ball tail. Every March I perch her atop the table in our foyer, and trust me, we never see a field mouse.

2013-03-09  »  Marilyn Brandt Smith