[LEGENDS OF THE BUNNIES.]

. . . .

(Above, to right and left, you see pictures of our most senior VIP stuffed bunny, Flops. We tricked him onto our scanner one day....told him it was a tanning bed. On March 21, 2001, hes celebrated his 20th birthday!)

Pick a legend from the list below:

DR. KEVORKEY-BUN

Tales are told of Dr. Kevorkey-Bun, who comes help rabbits who despair of life to end their lives. Dr.Kevorkey-Bun only comes when called. But the position is fiercely competitive. Often, huge battles are fought for the right to carry the title and fulfill the function. The reign of a Dr.Kevorkey-Bun may last only minutes, or it may actually last weeks or (rarely) months. During the week of November 11-17, 1996, the following (among many others) Dr. Kevorkey-Buns ruled:

As you can see from the above list, the post of Dr. K-Bun (as he/she is familiarly called) is not secure. Many rabbits (and yes--Dr. K-Bun is ALWAYS a rabbit) adopt favorite traditional names on assuming the role of Dr.K-Bun. They feel this might bring them luck. Sad to say--it's not worked out this way so far!

[ Go back and select another legend ]

DELILAH, QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRE BUNNIES

Though herself a rabbit, and challenged due to her having only one eye (she'd look rather piratical, with an eyepatch, a colorful red bandanna, and a sabre--but actually, she wears her ears so that one flops down over her empty eye socket, sort of like Hare-Bunica Lake! She wears tasteful frocks from the Bun Marche, Bunwit Teller, or Nieman-Harecus. She has occasionally worn attire from Hare-Ods in London, and she used to shop at the Bun-Heur des Dames in Paris. During her travels, Delilah usually flies through Chicago, allowing her to stop at O-Hare Air Port----Delilah actually favors a sort of Dior look like Audrey Hepbun--little black cocktail dresses for miles, with ooh-so-high spike heels. She feels this kind of outfit looks especially fitting in an airport waiting lounge. When she can, of course, she will also don a hat with a veil, all in sensible black. And gloves haven't gone out of style for her) Delilah is at the same time the cruelest enemy ever born of the clan of stuffed bunnies. She always is devising devious and cruel punishments and tortures for those poor souls! Why, just last Christmas she cruelly tricked them, and confiscated all of their ears. Imagine, hosts and legions of stuffed bunnies without ears, unable to wiggle them, unable to hear, their cuteness lost (or at least marred severely), why death were merciful.

But Delilah had not studied her calendar. She did not note that, when she took the ears, her plot would be quickly reversed, for shortly after Christmas follows NEW EARS DAY! Needless to say, all of the stuffed bunnies were quickly made whole again. Of course, another year the trick was on the bunnies. That goddess who delivers new ears on New Ears Day was getting a bit hard of hearing. So she brought each earless bunny GNU EARS. My, but they did look silly!

Another time, Delilah built a sweet cottage, using wonderful fresh vegetables. She covered the roof in cabbage, and built the walls from stalks of celery and bunches of carrots. She made it just as fresh and inviting as possible, hoping to lure inside the bunnies who customarily trundled past her place in the great woods. And inside of it, she placed a great, fearsome oven, planning to push the wandering bunnies into it as they stopped to browse at her cottage. Of course, things didn't work out so well. Delilah was ambushed by some wandering hares--and pushed into her own oven! My, but she just barely escaped!

But Delilah will NOT GIVE UP SO EASILY.

Latest plot from the nefarious Delilah? She has taken a number of smaller stuffed bunnies, and reprogrammed them AS ASSASSINS! She is sending them out into the world to "do in" the larger stuffed bunnies! Delilah's scheme? To skin the stuffed bunnies and have them made into bathmats and fuzzy toilet seat covers. She has hordes of small bunnies at work on her production lines (where they must labor 18 hours daily to the punishing strains of Philip Glass's music). Often, her workers are driven "over the edge" and elect to end their lives. They are then immediately placed on the production lines and achieve their brief immortality as bath mats! What ignominy! And at Christmas time too! Delilah has not been content with this once-only conversion. She has established a parallel production line, with thousands and thousands of stuffed bunnies laboring at it, which takes old bathmats, toilet seat covers, and chenille bathrobes and bedspreads, and converts THEM into stuffed bunnies!

As of Autumn, 1999, Delilah has opened a new "operation" (and--indeed--just in time for the millennium, you could say!) She has opened a Hollywood office as an agent, who supplies small mammal actors for true-life adventure documentaries. Her specialty, of course, is just that sort of extremely cute bunny you so often see on National Geographic and other specials, being pursued by drooling carnivores. She has quite a client turnover, of course, as her actors very seldom emerge completely unscathed from their acting jobs.

Watch out, if you see a very cute, very small stuffed bunny! It may be one of Delilah's gang!


Delilah in a Favorite Dior Frock
(Actually, there is some dispute about Delilah's nature. Few have seen her, and the above image is a reconstruction from survivors' accounts. Some say that she is NOT a rabbit--rather that she is a fox with a gift for disguise. Others say that Delilah is a male--with cross-dressing skills.)


[ Go back and select another legend ]

MA BUNNY'S PLACE

Throughout Western Washington, in many a quaint and curious community, there stand a wonderful series of Salad-Bar restaurants. Each is known as "Ma Bunny's Place." You can find these delightful establishments in Cle Elum, Humptulips, Enumclaw, Twisp, Moses Lake, and Coalville, among other communities. They're well worth visiting!

The "specialite de la maison," as it were, is always the salad bar. Picture, if you would, crisp lettuce and crunchy celery, radishes and beets galore, parsley and cabbage and brussels sprouts by the bushel, carrots and watercress enough to make you swoon, and all such other likewise wholesome greenery.

But Ma Bunny doesn't cater exclusively to the veggy-lover in all of us. No, certain nights each month she prepares "Predator Specials." These consist of curried coyote, wilted wolf, bear beranaise, lion with legumes, bobcat under glass, etc. Ma Bunny's normal clientele--rabbits--heartily applauds her creative cuisine.

The Guide Michelin obviously gives Ma Bunny's Place restaurants its highest ratings, *******!

[ Go back and select another legend ]

THE DUCK GODS AND THE PANTHEON OF DUCKS

I have long been feeding the campus ducks, starting in the late 1970's. Any leftover, dry, or (shudder) slightly greenish bread from home I have brought to the University and fed to the mallards. I began to notice a certain "something" about some of our feathered friends, and then became overtly aware of it when I noticed a suspicious string of webbed martyrdoms. What I became aware of was the certain divinity of certain duck martyrs. In the beginning was small Digby, literally broken apart, riven quite in twain, by jealous adult mallards, and floating in pieces in "Frosh Pond." Digby was the foundation of the duck pantheon, which follows....

Bosco was laid as an egg in the light well of the Oceanography Teaching Building, by a careless mother. She dutifully laid and hatched her eggs, but was unable to get the babies out of the light well. Human intervention saved all but poor Bosco, who perished there. Smedley, sad to say, was run over in the parking lot beside the Health Sciences "I" Wing. Glaumus and O-Cedar (he whose favorite heavenly motto is "O-Cedar Makes Your Life Easier") disappeared into the vastnesses of Portage Bay one Spring morning.

Minneapolis and St. Paul were abandoned at a very tender age by their cruel mothers, and perished seeking substitute maternal sustenance. Fibber and Molley, adult Mallards, were crushed by speeders on Boat Street. Albert was last noticed as a huddled mass of lifeless feathers beside that same street, perhaps 2 years later. An honorary inhabitant of ducky heaven is poor Smigby, a bunny we briefly owned in the early 1980's. His life was all too short, as he died of trauma after being frightened by a barking dog. Smigby was a noble beast, and a great jumper. R.I.P.

Latest in the pantheon of martyred ducks is Doodles, a little yellow duck. He was taken by his owners to swim with friends in a public pond, and was murdered most fowl-ly, by divebombing Canadian Geese.

In their heavenly abode, the duck pantheon rule over certain aspects of daily life. They are certainly reverenced by the clan of bunnies, and humans would do well to pray to them when seeking parking spaces, or before Jay-Walking across arterials ("Dear Digby," one might say. "Please let me cross this street in safety, without bashing, and without a ticket.") Interestingly enough, the duck gods occasionally enlist support personnel in their many services to person-kind. Just recently, on a trip to Portland, Oregon, we were assisted by the channelling efforts of the stuffed Rhinoceros "Ramses," who helped us have remarkable luck in finding parking spaces. This is a wonderful power!

Speaking of Ramses, we recently got quite upset at all of our natural preservationists who are so eager to save all of our endangered species, and yet have never once referred to that very rare breed, the Southern Hairy Nosed Rhinoceros of Georgia. My friends have pointed out to me, though, that we are TOO LATE to save these rare and wondrous beasts, since the last one died in 1864. You will remember that these Southern Hairy Nosed Rhinoceroses were of much assistance to the confederacy during the late unpleasantness in the south; they were referred to as the Tanks of the Confideracy. We are so sorry that they are gone!

The sacred pantheon of ducks will live forever.

[ Go back and select another legend ]

THE TRUTH ABOUT ROGER "WOGGUMS" RABBIT

Roger, ah Roger. At first sight, he is a remarkably fine looking stuffed rabbit. He wears a delightful Laura Ashley shirt, with a fine looking red jacket. His suction cups fairly glow. His white fur lends him a deceptive air of innocence. A rabbit -- one could say (ah, folly!) -- for all seasons. But some of us know better!

For you see, I've dreamed about Roger. He was drunk. Sodden drunk. And lying in a gutter, a very wet gutter, streaming with water. Roger was drunk, and Roger was wet. He was passed out, and smelling of fermented carrot juice.

"Roger," I said, shaking him out of his stupor. "Roger, why did you get so drunk?"

He burped.

And only later, we found out he stole money from his poor mistress K**** S****, and "blew" it at a night in the seamy bunny bars! But all I could do at this time, in my dream, was lay him tenderly in the back of my Volkswagen Bug until he recovered.

So you see......appearances are deceiving. The next time you see a short rabbit, dressed in red and wearing suction cups, RUN!!! Hide your wallet, and run!!!

It COULD be Roger!!!

[ Go back and select another legend ]

FECKLESS FRED

Once upon the time, in the deep dark woods, lived a little green stuffed rabbit named Fred. Fred was pretty well behaved, but pretty dumb. Fred did not realize the consequences of his own actions. One could say that he had not yet mastered the concept of cause and effect. And that got him in trouble, serious trouble.

Fred was a wild little rabbit. He liked to "party hearty," and was often seen carousing around the juice bars. "Set 'em up for the house! Carrot Cocktails are on me," he'd likely exclaim, spending his hard-earned dollars plying his friends with drink. He was loyal--he never went back on his word, and if a buddy needed help, he was the first to volunteer. But you see, that was actually part and parcel of his undoing.

Feckless Fred, one night, went to Brer Bunny's Bistro, a sleezy seedy beet-juice bar on the wrong side of the tracks. He was feeling good, and when his buddy Luther Cottontail came up to him, saying "Hay, Greenie! How ya' doin', ya old green reprobate," Fred was most overjoyed to see him.

"Hey, buddy," said Luther to Fred, "I don't suppose you could loan me some lettuce??!! The Ole' lady is havin' her mother in law over to stay, an I gotta get em some cabbage juice."

"Sure," said Feckless Fred. "You're my great good buddy, and here's some lettuce, an you're welcome to it!"

Fred handed his little green wallet, stuffed with greenbacks, to Luther Cottontail, saying "Here, just take what you need! Pay me back when you want to."

And that was Fred's undoing. Luther hopped on out the door with Fred's wallet, his fortune, and all his cash cards. He took over Fred's car, his home, and his possessions. Using Fred's fortune and his amiable reputation, Luther ran for President of all the Lagomorphs, and he won. Fred's fortune provided an ample dowery when Luther found the doe of his dreams. Luther wound up truly on top of the heap! Fred stayed at the bottom.

And yet, you know, the story's moral is not what you'd expect. One day, when an assasin's bullet found Luther and slayed him, then all his wealth and power and fame did him no good. And poor feckless Fred, who had no power...no wealth...no fame....; well he survived Luther by many years, and kept his sweet disposition, to boot.

The morals of the story?