Senorita Jakita and Peter Cottontail

One day, long time ago, Momma’s father (a.k.a Grandpapa to me) told her and her sisters that he had met up with Peter Cottontail that very day in the forest. (OK, alright, settle down, they lived in the country, not downtown Toronto).

Now at that time, you did not argue with or disbelieve your elders.  To their amazement, Grandpapa told them Peter communicated with him that he (Peter) had gone out to the local store, dressed in the disguise of Little Red Riding Hood and bought a package of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum. Peter wanted my father to give a stick  of gum to each of his good children.

With that said, Momma’s father solemnly reached in to his  breast pocket of his blue plaid lumberjack shirt, extracted the package and passed it around from oldest to youngest, for them to each take a piece of green wrapped Spearmint Chewing Gum .

Momma never asked her sisters if they believed that yarn but I deemed my Grandpapa’s Peter Cottontail story to be totally plausible. I’ve had my eyes on the cotton-tails and know that they are nervy enough to eat the vegetables out of  Momma’s garden, staring at me, ears all a twitch, taunting me, just brazen, the lot of them.

I have no doubt that Peter would fool  the storekeeper with a disguise. What probably  is harder to compute is that Peter Cottontail would give the gum to Grandpapa to share with his kids. The deed of  buying the gum and tricking the storekeeper was believable, they are a crafty lot who could easily bamboozle the locals, but sharing their spoils, I doubt it. Certainly not the Cotton-tails in this part of the woods, who don’t even flinch when I bark and growl to try to chase them from the garden. They are of the mistaken opinion that the lettuce, the carrots, even the tulips from the flower gardens, are for their consumption and I had better get with the picture.

Momma told me about that well-loved bunny, Thumper who befriended  Bambi in the movie, helping him adjust to the reality of the forest and all of its blessings and challenges.  I am telling you, there are no Thumpers in Jakitaville, no, we got city slicker rabbits, with ra-bi-tude who look at all domestics and the Two Footed with disdain.  Since Peter Cottontail was from the Country, maybe he was that altruistic,  I am not going to totally rule it out…..because well, you know already, Ruby, Gen and I like to believe:                  

‘The truth is out there.’