Loren Smith

Hideaway Bunny Loren Smith

Memories are funny things. Way back when I was a boy, my Grandfather took me jackrabbit hunting on the country roads around Ft. Stockton in West Texas. We'd shoot a single shot .22 rifle, which he would eventually give me, out of his pickup truck windows at cans or fence posts and an occasional rabbit. On one occasion I spotted something small and brown in a clump of grass beside the road. It was a baby jackrabbit. I stuck the barrel of the .22 out the passenger side window of the pickup truck, closed my left eye and took aim. Paw Paw wasn't much of a talker so when he spoke it meant something. "If you shoot that little feller he will never have a chance to grow up. I'll bet his family would miss him." I opened my left eye and pulled the gun back inside the pickup. We drove back to the ranch house where our family including uncles, aunts and cousins were all staying in a ranch house near to where me and PawPaw were riding around. When we got out of the pickup several cousins were standing around talking. I joined the group and mentioned that I had seen a baby jackrabbit. One cousin said, "Oh I want a bunny." "I will get you a bunny," I said before I thought. "Promise?" "I promise," I said, immediately regretful that I'd made a promise that would be almost impossible to keep. She skipped away singing, "I'm going to get a buuu neee, I'm going to get a buuu neee." All these many years later, whenever I see that old .22 rifle, I remember Paw Paw and the lesson he taught that day. Here is Hideaway Bunny.