For about
two years, I have been playing tennis two or three times a week with some
gentlemen of similar age and opportunity. “Old, retired guys” is another way to
say that.
It’s a
good group of guys, and they welcomed me like they do all newcomers. At first,
I was the guy that you lost with. Now, I win my fair share.
For the
most part, it is a first-name clan. You don’t need to know the last name to
say, “Good shot, Peter.” Or Bob, or Ross, or Hank, or Steve…I don’t need to
list 30-something names, do I?
I knew
some of them from another life, like Hank Johnson, my editor at the Athens
Banner-Herald. But for most of them, tennis is the common denominator.
When
there is an odd number of players, we chat as we wait to play. And maybe get to
know each other a bit. Which is how I learned not long ago that Peter Wild was
born and raised in England. He was a child there during World War II. Unlike
the children of London who were dispatched to the countryside for their own
safety, Peter already lived in the country.
He
discovered Athens when he came to attend the University of Georgia. He found
his bride here too.
“I
married an Athens girl,” he clarified.
“Anyone I
might know?” I inquired.
“Harriett
Rosser,” he said.
My follow-up
comment was not exactly an artful segue. And if I were to offer you a million
dollars, you could not predict what I said next.
“Have you
ever run across a mahogany rabbit box?”
“Well,
yes,” he said. “I have one in the barn. I was thinking about putting it in the
garden because the rabbits are getting into the okra.”
“My dad
made that rabbit box,” I said.
After Daddy
bought a farm and moved to Winterville, he had a shop and filled it with a
planer, a drill and saws of various types and took to making furniture. I’m at
this very moment sitting in front of a J.B. Giles-made coffee table. Elsewhere
in my home are other furniture pieces he made. He made cedar hope chests and
cradles and tables and cabinets, giving them away.
Daddy did
not as a rule work from plans. He could conceptualize it and make it. The one
exception might have been the magician’s box with the hidden door that he made
on order.
Decades ago,
Daddy made the rabbit box, from mahogany, and gave it as a gag to his friend
Harry Rosser, Peter’s father-in-law. Harry was a World War II veteran who
worked at the University of Georgia Physical Plant before retiring.
I never
saw the box. But I knew about it, and I knew it must have been received warmly,
probably with a belly laugh.
Back to
the tennis court.
“Say,
Peter, do you think you could take a picture of that box? I’ve never seen it.”
“Tell you
what,” said Peter, “I’ll bring it next time we play so you can see it.”
Sure
enough, he transported it to the Athens-Clarke Tennis Center, in the trunk of
his white Corvette. A mahogany rabbit box has to travel in style, you know.
I
recognized Daddy’s handiwork and style. Peter demonstrated how it worked, just
like a rabbit box should.
“Peter,
let me get a photo,” I said.
“Would
you like to take it home?” he asked.
It would
be poetic to write that my heart skipped a beat. I had not expected so gracious
an offer.
“If
you’re serious, I would love to,” I said. “It will be a treasured heirloom in
our family.”
And so, I
packed it in the trunk of my BMW Z3. Still traveling in style.
Peter
once worked for Clarke County and knew my dad, but I don’t believe he knew that
he was the creator of the world’s most unusual rabbit box.
Peter
said he looked for some marks to indicate the maker, but he never found them.
My wife did, on the base, a simple stencil reading JBG.
For now,
the rabbit box occupies a spot on the hearth, and its story has been enriched
by an act of kindness that is every bit as grand as the original handiwork.
