Art

This is a blogger challenge. We were given the word "art" as a starting point...


In around 1978 I remember a peculiar crisis. The Australian government had opted for a highly controversial option for the eradication of the rabbit population, myxomatosis.  Was essentially a virus which wiped out the feral rabbit population.
To a young child, as I was, killing rabbits was akin to putting a bullet to the Easter bunny.  Then Richard Adams penned his blistering exposure of the project. It didn’t seem that way- it was packaged as a novel about our small large-eared friends- Watership Down.
Being susceptible to emotive topics, I got attached. Pictured rabbits gasping their last in meadows. Their little flag tails twitching in the balmy summer sunsets. It didn’t help when Art Garfunkel released his song, Bright Eyes
. The best song about rabbit massacre ever written, it became the unlikely hit of that year.
And, for me, you say the word “art” and I can see Art Garfunkel with his wavy hair while my dad drives our car down a leafy lane in Cornwall. We were on holiday, heads full of ice creams and beach sand. We even skimmed past a car as it ran over a rabbit. As the furry creature cartwheeled into the bushes, I could hear Art harmonizing with himself.

How mad. These snapshots of life that stay with you.