Bunny Traps
- Justin H. Briggs
- Sep 30
- 3 min read
By noon on Sundays we were all at grandpa’s house. There was not much else to do back then, really, and you have to imagine our parents needed some time off, aside from the hustle of raising children.
Sometimes there would be a football game played across the lawn or watched on TV by all present, but usually we arrived after church or chores or both, and my cousins and I, them being older, would find things to keep ourselves occupied.
Bored children…oh, the possibilities. BB Guns, knife throwing, walnut fights, rock fights, fist fights; just Sunday Things. But when one of the older cousins discovered that you could make a trap out of a crate, a stick, a carrot, and some twine, things took a turn for the primordial.
We started setting up bunny traps in my grandfather’s yard years before my memory allows my recollection on specifics. These traps were an every summer occasion. You have seen them in cartoons, perhaps imagined the necessity for such game in the event of societal collapse, but we were just that bored.
Grandpa had at least an acre for us to trap on, and we would often put out ten or so traps at a time, hoping by the time we checked the traps at nightfall, after returning from play in the woods, that we would find a bunny bounty.
It never worked that way. We never landed the prize. It is like this in so many realities. When we do our best work, we still find a shortcoming in the results. Or no results whatsoever beyond time and effort spent. Such is the way of boredom; necessity of nothing.
It is one thing to construct a trap but it is quite another thing to realize the fruits of your labor. You see, patience is key. There is no time which requires more patience than the time between setting a trap and reaping the bounty of a successful springing. But our traps always came up empty, thus the joy of pursuits.
The trap fulfills one’s heart merely in orchestration; the hope of game...do not believe that you will succeed; prepare to do so. And so on the summer days, with hours left in the daylight, we would proceed on our campaign to catch every bunny in a yard the size of an acre at least.
There were many bunnies back then, so it only stood to reason by our young minds that we could capitalize off of the abundant bounty of nature. We would see ourselves cheering as we lifted the crates, secure in the understanding that we had done what needed to be done.
But oftentimes weeks would go by with no success. In fact, if I recall correctly, at no time were any of the traps which tempted the abundant bunnies with bait of carrots, lettuce, celery, or any other stray piece of food in grandma’s kitchen, found to be successful.
Of course we would have never killed the game had a trap succeeded, and if we did we would have cooked it and eaten it, but this was for sport. Like sport fishing, or so many nights these days, we weren’t looking for the kill, just the emotions. The thrill.
We did not need to be satiated by capturing a bunny and killing it, we simply wanted to see what would happen if we tried a trap. I will try a trap upon any occasion, should such an occasion arise. Predator or prey, traps abound today more than bunnies ever have.
There is a passion which can flair in us when in pursuit. We feel a drive, a yearning, foresee a goal. Our natural inclination is to hunt and kill, as predators with our eyes on the fronts of our heads and so when we give in to this desire we inherently share a feeling of the ancients.
A calling from the past. A predestination with our present. A burning desire for the success of our lineage. Of course, we are talking about trapping the bunnies, not killing them, but we want to know we can handle our own. This is the desire.
Years beyond now, and the times of bunny traps have died. But the memory of the childhood schemes, the youthful eagerness of the preparations, the subliminal nature of the patience across the gang of confirmed, ornery misfits with no real master.
The need to succeed. These emotions still resonate. These drives still push. And so as the days unfold in my adult years, as the weeks pass by, and as the time continues to fade away, I find a peace in the understanding that the freedom of youth is evident from day to day.
Give the children freedom and they shall respond with our primitive natures, they will test limits on principle, and they will prove us all wrong.
