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.