OUR "BUG GUY" BROUGHT HARE-Y NEWS !

********************************************************************

A STRANGER HAD COME THAT FREEZING JANUARY!

********************************************************************

(The cognoscenti among writing teachers say that EVERY

STORY is based on one of two events: A stranger comes

to town or the hero/heroine takes a trip. Our tale, as you will
see, just as these experts say, begins with a stranger coming....)
*********************************

It was very cold, that January of 1990. Christmas, with all its
fun was over, as well as New Year's football, and the Super
Bowl was several weeks away. I may have had a touch of the
January blues---though it is my arrival month on the planet---
it is not my favorite month.

It was late afternoon, and at that time of year, already getting
dark. My music teacher wife was just home from school.
Ernie, our pest control expert (we referred to him lovingly
as our "BUG GUY") was doing the outside of our house
(only) and was in the backyard spraying. He was good. We'd
had him a long time.

As Ernie finished and came to the door for his check, it crossed
my mind that he looked a little pre-occupied, or "sheepish" or
something. I gave him his check and he stood there, almost
scuffing his toe, looking down, and hesitating. "Er Mil," he said,
"I hate to tell you this, but you've got a big white bunny rabbit
hopping around in your backyard!"

"WHAT?! I blurted out, as the implications of this hit my brain
all at once, in full force. (How could hat be? We didn't have a
rabbit!) Now I knew how the old kings felt, and my first
inclination was to kill the messenger.

I paid Ernie, and he took off right quick(ly), as if glad to be
out of the fray. I did what any self-respecting former farm
boy would do---I made a "bee-line" out there to find out if
our visitor was a tame rabbit or a jack rabbit. A jack rabbit
could just be sent back into the wild through an open gate.

You guessed it. He was a big white-plump, furry, tame,
sissy-looking bunny rabbit, in his own right. He didn't
arrive in our backyard by jumping the fence, nor did
he parachute in---someone had dropped him over the fence.
It was clearly a case of "First Degree: Dumping A Rabbit
On Mil...Premeditated." Hmmm. Did I have an enemy?

From the wife's standpoint, January is not a very good month
to have company "drop in." It was obvious he would be
spending the night. "It's too cold out here," she said. "We'll
have to catch him and bed him down in the house." So we
set out to do just that. We chased that rabbit all over the back
yard. He may have looked like a sissy but he COULD RUN!

We chased him until we were "blue in the face," as my mother
used to say. No luck. We even tried: "Here bunny, here bunny!"
That didn't work. I finally got kind of ticked off. That rabbit had
absolutely ruined my day. "Okay, pal," I thought, "If you want
to camp out in this cold, be my guest!"

My beloved wife took great pity on that critter, showing a lot
of concern as women are wont to do. She got busy fixing up
our guest (and future family member?) for the night. I helped
her and we cut a door in a sturdy apple box, she lined it with
an old shower rug with newspapers under it for insulation.

Outside this domicile she placed a little bowlful of water, and
right beside that some carrot pieces! (Okay, what would you
put? We had no "rabbit manual.") She was to be commended.
It was a cozy pad, good enough for any decent rabbit.

We went into the house, had supper, and our curiosity simply
got the best of us. We got my old Boy Scout flashlight and
tippy-toed out there and looked in the door of the box, almost
like two eager parents. What? No rabbit! Quickly searching,
we found him snuggled up with a big smooth rock under our
pine tree. What an ingrate! That's where he slept the whole
time he was here.

I may have been slightly critical of our guest in the preceding
paragraphs, so I want to kind of give him a break here. I studied
him--- he was really a sweet rabbit, with absolutely no guile. He
wouldn't have hurt a flea. If there was ever on earth a creature
with no evil intentions, it was that rabbit. He didn't even eat bugs
or anything.

The world would be better off if tigers, lions, panthers, jaguars,
wolves, bears, bobcats, and animals like that had the same
attitude as our nice rabbit. And he had apparently come to stay
for the duration.

After a few days, not knowing what to do about him, and the cold
and all, we began to worry about him. He apparently did not like
carrots, and didn't even touch them. Other human food was not
popular either. Also, we were busy people, and did not want to
search out and take a course in "Rabbit Husbandry." The whole
event was reminiscent of the famous "Baby Chick Fiasco" of some
thirty years earlier.

Hmmm. What to do? Suddenly my wife had an idea. She was a
music teacher who had worked in many schools. During those
years, she had seen teachers who had all kinds of animals in
their classrooms! These were used as educational projects for
the wide-eyed kids to become familiar with "our world." She
enumerated to me: hamsters, lizards, frogs, snakes, birds,
goldfish, and even one iguana. One fifth grade teacher even
brought live mice and the kids fed the class snake and watched
him swallow the mice.

These same teachers, mentioned above, would have drawings
in their classrooms to see what kid got to take home X animal
to water, feed, and care for during the Christmas holidays! My
wife's idea was to have a drawing for our backyard rabbit, so
that he would have a good home and be adored and pampered
by a little kid!

So she set the whole thing up with one of her favorite classroom
teachers---a fifth grade with about twenty-five kids. When asked
how many would like a nice big white, furry, cuddly, hopping
bunny rabbit "for your very own," all twenty-five hands went up.

So one morning the drawing was held; names of all kids who
brought approval notes from home were placed in the box.
Little nearsighted Eddie, with the real thick glasses won the
rabbit. There was much excitement in that schoolroom that day!

My wife came home that cold afternoon and I met her at the door!
"How'd it go, how'd it go?" "Well, Eddie won him, but they can't come
get him. We are going to have to deliver him tonight."

So we reversed the apple box to close up the door and left it
open to the air and somehow, being highly motivated, we cornered
that rabbit. About 5:30 p.m. we headed out to Eddie's house, down
by San Mateo and the Freeway. The box didn't weigh that much and
my wife went to the door with our un-named rabbit. I felt a small
twinge, kind of like we'd "had him on approval and rejected him."
But he'd be better off. After a bit of small talk, my wife returned and
we left.

To top everything off, my dad was in the hospital with heart surgery at
the time and I had suggested that we go to Los Cuates to kind of relax
and forget our worries a little bit. So we drove down San Mateo to
our favorite Mexican restaurant, a small cafe in the wall.

It was a good choice; windows were brightly lit and fogged over with
condensation from the cold. It was full of people. There was an air of
festivity there which can be achieved only on a frosty January night in a
small warm friendly little cafe, where people are drawing cheer and
good will from each other.

We sat and talked and had some laughs and relaxed over cups of steaming
hot coffee. The enchiladas were great as usual. We were glad it was all over.
We had cleared another hurdle on the great journey of life we were making
together.

It probably doesn't seem like any big deal to the reader....but it wasn't your
backyard.

I couldn't help but worry a little about our rabbit...and wish him well.

*********30********
BY MIL
8/07/13








Sent from my iPad