True-Life Adventures On "The Rock" II

Bunnies a-bounding

I walked out to the car to see a brown rabbit bounding away. Then another--this one a baby--scurrying into the brush.

"Bunnies!" I thought. "Where have they been?"

I got into the car and reflected that they were doing a pretty lousy job keeping the grass down, and backed up the car--only to see another one bounding away in front of me. Onto the street, there are three more--two adults, one runt--before I make it to "Dead Man's Curve." Two more before I hit the Cliff Road. Four more along it.

Wabbits! Lots of 'em! (Insert Elmer Fudd laugh here)

And I think back to a drizzly Spring Sunday last year, not long after we'd moved here, and looking at the knoll by the shed (it had a large threatening tree on it at the time) and seeing a rabbit hop out of it, followed by a small baby bouncing clumsily after.

Awww. "What's the group-name for rabbits?" I thought, calling to mind James Lipton's little tome about it.

Just then, six more little bunnies bounced out of the hole and scurried about, nibbling on the nubs of grass. And just as suddenly, a candidate-word jumped into my head.

"Infestation."

But I doubt that was the precise term.
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Tom Poston died the other day. Poston's one of those guys (like Bob and Ray, Bob Newhart) whose wit was as dry as gin, and he always made me laugh, whether as one of Steve Allen's "Men on the Street," or "That Was the Week That Was," or "To Tell the Truth," or either of "Bob Newhart" or, even, "Newhart." Incredibly funny in a low-key kind of way, with an unmistakably smokey Eeyore kind of voice. Once I even got to record a commercial with him--I mean, I recorded the commercial, and then I got to be the other voice he played off of. How neat is that?

Here's an early picture of Tom, with the gal he finally married in 2001--Suzanne Pleshette