(This week in 1978, Roberta Bunny, wife of the famous Easter Bunny, hopped into my column at the Hancock County Courier. Roberta and I touch base every few years to see how we each are doing. This year’s visit follows:)
….Easter nears and It’s that time of the year to visit an old friend of mine…..Roberta Rabbit. Yes, a bunny has been with me as I traveled the path of life and coincidentally her evolution has mimicked mine.
….. I trekked to the top of the hill behind 2nd Avenue in New Cumberland yesterday to catch up on what’s new in Roberta’s life. Roberta was originally the wife of the Easter bunny until life happened and she broke out on a career of her own. Is Roberta my alter ego? Probably. But she seemed so real and her problems were my problems too. The hopes and dreams just beyond her reach were escaping my grasp as well so ………we bonded.
……It was the late 70’s and I was working as a reporter at the Hancock County Courier when I first met Roberta. Oh, how I loved that job. For the first time I had a work family and they didn’t make fun of my tendency to grab onto an issue and fight for it nor did they prevent me from writing the all- time sappiest column in newspaperland. It was called Hometown Heartbeat and each week it featured an individual or organization that had made a difference in a town where volunteers did the work that paid employees performed in most other towns.
……Where did the idea of Roberta generate? I think Roberta popped into my mind one Easter week when the kids were little. It all started with the absurdity of boiling eggs, coloring them with food coloring and decorating them with little stick ons and putting them a grass filled bowl or worse yet in an Easter Basket. I mean every kid wants to eat a boiled egg when he/she has a basket of candy. But, still the boiling and the coloring persevered among mothers everywhere. And, for what? After a token two days those eggs would be tossed out.
……… So that year, I stopped cold declaring there to be no more egg coloring at our house. My kids didn’t care. It took away the annual pressure to eat a hard boiled egg.. My sister, Marsha, was aghast at my latest rebellion. So much so that she invited the kids to her house to color eggs with their 5 cousins. She adhered to all the time traveled traditions lest one of them secured her the key to Heaven. Her husband was Polish, so she made him bosch, a disgusting concoction with milk, beets, bread and I think sausage. It was awful and no-one would eat it. Heck, I don’t think even her husband liked it. Yet, she made it every year because she said it symbolized Easter. I said it symbolized action without thought. She said it reinforced her contention that I had to be adopted.
……My Hometown Heartbeat column that week was an interview with the Easter Bunny and I started up the hill. Like many women of that era, I thought you had to match your outfit to the job. Mine included very tight Gloria Vanderbuilt jeans, with a silk shirt topped by a tweed blazer and Candie’s high heels. Not to be left out of my persona, my hair was long, permed and wild.
…….I spied a quaint cottage that looked like something out of Beatrix Potter. The door opened and out hopped Peter all gussied up to go out on the town. I ran up and told him I had scheduled an interview with him. After all, he was the bunny of the hour. To my surprise he said, “Nope, gotta go, gotta go. Places to go, people to see.” And with nary a look back he hopped off.
…..I was screwed. My column was going to be a block of white space if I didn’t do something drastic. “Wait,” I thought. “If I can’t interview the man of the hour, I’ll interview the woman of the moment, his wife.”
…….I rang the bell….no answer I knocked heavily. But nothing could be heard above a 33 rpm blaring “I am strong! I am invincible. I am woooooman!” And, that’s when I met the REAL Easter Bunny.”
…….”Can’t buy what you ‘re selling.,” she said looking at my briefcase ” I spent all my cash on jelly beans from the bunny band.”
……..”I’m not selling anything, I just want a few minutes of your time to talk about Easter preparation,” I had already wedged my foot in the door so she couldn’t turn me away. I expected to see countless productive little bunnies pouring chocolate into bunny molds while other bunnies packed Easter Baskets. Nope, didn’t see any mother’s helpers.
……..What I did see was perfect chaos, The shag carpet was peppered with smashed jelly beans. Two bunnies were perfecting their egg juggling before the eggs were boiled. And Roberta, she was bedraggled and cranky. A comb had never touched her ears and never would because Easter grass was stuck to the marshmellow fluff. Her apron was streaked with candy. She looked cranky and it was no wonder.
…….I made the call. “Looks to me like you’re the real Easter Bunny.” I said. I had not only outed the secret perpetuated by years of male rabbit domination, I had validated her worth. And then I heard our anthem. It was Helen Reddy singing “I am strong…..I an invincible….I am woooooman.”
“It’s time we get our own power, Roberta,” I said.
“Yep,” she answered as she pried a little bunny from her apron.
…….It was the 1980s when I made the trek again. The jeans’ combo had been replaced with a power suit with shoulder pads and a shirt with a necktie. We thought to get men’s jobs we had to emulate their dress.
Again, I saw a bunny hop out of the cottage and head for a shiny new car, only it wasn’t Peter it was Roberta….a whole new Roberta. She too had on a power suit and her ears had been permed to perfection. She had news for me.
“I did a skill assessment through a program called “Wider Opportunities for Women” at the community college. Turned out I had all the skills to be a public relations bunny. I’ve got Peter predominantly doing malls, they’ve transformed shopping. But my reputation to promote a client got me Santa and Rudolph, the Tooth Fairy and Mother Nature. I’m working on Baby New Years, but he’s such a cry baby we can’t agree on terms.”
“And, what about your baby bunnies? And it’s Easter. Who’s cooking the ham?”
“Daycare and I’m having it catered. Don’t have time for that anymore.”
“Stop so we can talk, Roberta. I want to interview you about this phenomenal change in your life,” I pleaded.
“Can’t stop,” she said. “Can’t you see I’m hopping as fast as I can just to stay in one place.”
So was I.
……..It was a few decades before I returned to the cottage to see a relaxed Roberta sitting on the porch surrounded by baby bunnies in the yard. She was a lot grayer and a lot happier. What had happened?
…….”The grand bunnies came along and now I get such joy from slowing down and watching them grow. I look at each of them and think “we paved the way. You can be anything you want to be baby bunny.”
……She was right, it was time to relax and watch our granddaughters know no boundaries in reaching their dreams.
……..The kids came over the other night and discovered bunnies all over my house. They took them upstairs to my bedroom to take a nap with them and as they tucked them in I said “that one is Roberta.”
“Don’t be silly Nana said Madilynn, the practical one. “She’s just a stuffed bunny.”
Emilia, the creative diva, looked at my crestfallen face and said, “But, she’s Nana’s bunny so she can do anything she wants, right Nana?.”
“She can,” I said. But just in case I put an old 33 record on my vintage record play and the strains of “I am strong…….I am invincible……I am Woooooman,” played as they drifted off to sleep.
…….
“Getting ready to<” she said, “How about you?”
a that would be tossed out and food coloring and the most popular song that year I first encountered Robert.
You remember “I am strong….I am invincible……I am woman!!!” It was the battle cry for many of us.
