A reader responds to Don Ramon
An interested reader responded to my column that appeared in The
Huntsville Item on Easter Sunday. What follows is the complete text
of that response and my response to that response. Other responses may
follow—or maybe not.
Easter Sunday 2002
Señor Ramon,
Today I read, with a small degree of interest, your idea of changing
the symbol of Easter from the Bunny to the Emu. Apparently you have done
a bit of research in favor of the odd-looking Australian bird that doesn’t
even fly. I give in to your argument an oviparous animal makes a great
deal more sense when the current mascot pretends to lay eggs as well as
hop herself around the world hiding eggs. I agree that a chicken must
have had a hand in this somewhere. I’ve given several minutes thought
to this exact subj give in to your argument an oviparous animal makes
more sense. (Again an argument for the chicken.)
3. Aect over the course of my life. I’m not ready to write a letter
of support of your proposal. However, if you want to rebut my objections
we might be able to come to some understanding or compromise before submitting
your totally useless idea to the United States Congress.
Taking your arguments in order:
1. Enough with alliteration. “Easter Chick” may be gender
sensitive to some, but we all know who lays the eggs, so to speak, in
a family.
2. Is to the already colored Emu eggs, certainly our “Yankee
ingenuity” would allow us to come up with a chicken feed to produce
different colored eggs on Easter morn.
4. “One egg per kid!!!!” Come on. The fun of it all is for
kids to fight over who gets the most eggs. Sometimes the 10 year-olds
kill their younger siblings for this honor.
5. I will leave number 5 and 6 to be dealt with in my closing argument.
6. Same as above.
7. True there are many rich airline pilots who bought into the idea of
tax savings by raising Emus, but pilots don’t need more money than
they already have.
8. Chocolate bunnies, emus, or hens don’t matter to a kid. Most
are empty chocolate shells and all kids feel cheated by these obvious
Wal-Mart items.
My closing argument FOR the egg distribution problem also has “family
values.” The whole family can participate in this scenario:
Every family raises 6 hens in a cage in their back yard. (OK there’s
a “block rooster” to make occasional rounds). The aforementioned
egg-dying feed would only be used once a year. Then on Easter morning,
all neighborhood cages will be opened and the hens can lay their eggs
in any spot they want. This will allow parents as well as children a chance
to go on an Easter egg hunt together (family values again). Then
after the hunt and the prize for finding the most eggs, the families round
up their chickens, pick one or more to cook for dinner and put the rest
back in the cages for another year.
With excessive sincerity,
Margaret Conwell
P. S. Hal wanted to make a comment, but he doesn’t know how
to use a computer and won’t even TRY to learn! Until then he doesn’t
have a vote.
MY RESPONSE
Señora Conwell,
I read with great interest your response to my suggestion that the Easter
Bunny be replaced with the Easter Emu. I found one or two of your arguments
to be sufficiently compelling to merit a speedy response and a suggestion
that you forward your comments to The Huntsville Item. The significance
of the issues involved merits a much wider debate than simply an exchange
of e-mails.
Responding to your arguments in order:
1. Alliteration always affects alert adversaries adversely hence should
not be dismissed so lightly. . "Easter Chick" has little to
recommend it.
2. Thanks for your concession.
3. I have seen colored eggs produced by chickens. Whether attributable
to specially formulated food or genetics, the egg color is uniformly weak
and washed out. Emu eggs are just prettier.
4. This is your most persuasive argument. As the eldest of 6 siblings,
I find the prospect of having a legitimate excuse to eliminate one or
two younger siblings does have a certain appeal.
5. and 6 are both subsumed under your chicken argument.
7. You got me on this one.
8. Not a bad point, but you must admit a life sized chocolate emu, hollow
or not, is considerably more impressive than a life sized chicken or rabbit.
All dentists I have talked to concur on this point.
Your "family values" argument is worth thinking about and is,
I believe, the basis for a compromise. The compromise I suggest is-- let's
cross a chicken and emu to produce a somewhat smaller and more manageable
bird to do the work you contemplate for chickens. To accomplish this we
should find a particularly enthusiastic, testosterone-enhanced rooster
with delusions of grandeur to serve as the foundation stud for our project.
This should not be difficult in Texas. Our super stud rooster would then
"visit" as many female emus as possible-- I calculate at least
30 per day would be about right. Again, this is Texas. The offspring of
this union would provide the foundation herd for our project. We then
implement the scenario you suggest. (As an aside, I thought about using
a male emu to "visit" chicken hens but the mental image of both
the breeding and the egg laying process was too horrible to conceive---
so to speak.)
If nothing else this compromise would avoid a serious flaw in your plan
for using chickens, i.e. most sub-divisions have specific restrictions
against harboring chickens. The critter involved in our compromise would
not be specifically restricted because he/she/it does not yet exist, hence
could not be specifically prohibited.
As a final thought, I strongly believe that working together we can forge
a workable plan that will revolutionize Easter for the benefit of all
children and their families.
Your Interested Compatriot
Don Ramon
P.S. Sorry about Hal's being technologically challenged.
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