Rabbits are really much more intelligent than people give them credit for. We had three rabbits, one lived to be 8, one 9, that slept in the bed with us, came when you called them, and were housebroken. They thought they were dogs. all three were Netherland Dwarfs, two pounds apiece, short ears and muzzles.

The first rabbit was given to us as a baby by a woman who was a rabbit expert and told us it was a girl. It was colored like a Saimese cat. The most beautiful rabbit I've ever seen. We named it Sonya after my secretary who was Indonesian, had big brown eyes like the rabbit, and was visiting in Holland at the time. Some friends really liked Sonya and got a rabbit -- a boy. They named it Bibby after Henry Bibby, who was playing basketball for UCLA at the time (tells you how far back this goes), because it had a big white patch on its chest that looked like a bib. We took Sonya down to Solana Beach where they lived to (1) mate the two and (2) sail to Catalina Island with them on their sailboat. We put the rabbits together and found out in about seven seconds that Sonya wasn't a girl and Bibby wasn't a boy. My wife was laughing so hard she was crying. Sonya became Isaac, after Isaac Curtis, who was a wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals at the time. Isaac lived to be 8. The move from Marina del Rey to La Crescenta was too much for him and he died.

The neighbor kids down the street raised rabbits. They brought a litter of tiny, three week old rabbits over in a blanket and showed us. We said "We'll take that one." They said, "OK, but they won't be weaned for four more weeks." A few days later, on a Friday night, I come home from work and here is this tiny rabbit sitting on the kitchen table. My wife said "They declared him weaned." I made myself a short glass of Jack Daniels on the rocks and set it on the table. The rabbit ran over and started drinking out of the glass. 3 1/2 weeks old, not weaned from his mother's milk, and he's drinking whiskey. We named him JD on the spot. JD feared nothing. We subsequently got a 25 pound ass kicking cat named Jamaica. There was a blue jay that tormented the neighborhood cats. On day one, Jamaica ate the blue jay and beat up all the other cats. JD used to chase Jamaica around. Chased him up a tree. JD lived to be 9. He died when he crashed head first into a metal bedpost chasing the cat around.

We got another rabbit who loved to climb up things and drink copious amounts of water. We named him Archimedes after the Archimedes Screw, which moved water uphill. This was quickly shortened to Archie. He was the sweetest of all. If you sang to him, he would stand up on his hind legs and dance around in a circle. Unfortunately, Archie had a rare internal ailment and died at nine months. I cried all night long.

Raptor's Theory of Rabbits: Most all people's perception of rabbits is in the wild, where you can't get near them, or in cages or hutches, where their bodies are atrophied (rabbits like to run) and thier personalities are stifled. Imagine you were from outer space, doing a survey of the humam race, and your sample size consisted of the Tadasay tribe in the highlands of New Guinea still in the stone age (at least until recently) and people in prison. What kind of conclusions would you reach?

 

 

Wabbit. Them's good eatin'.

 

Georgia cracker!

 

General Custer was the first man to wear an Arrow shirt.