The world’s most unusual rabbit box

 

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.