The chorus grows louder! And from unexpected sources! Stephen Colbert, host of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central took a few jabs at city hall poobahs, calling on them to Re-Easterfy the Bunny. Colbert even came up with a nice moniker for EasterBunnyDude, calling him Pro-Easter Walnut Creeker. Has a nice flow to it, and much kinder and gentler than Easter Bunny Activist.
Is it my imagination, or did Colbert subtly pronounce the city’s name “WalNUT Creek” when he set up the story? You be the judge.
Do the math
In the form letter being sent to those protesting to city hall, city hall rabbit-rousters proudly note that their Easter Spring Equinox Celebration of Vernal Rebirth event has been a “wildly popular tradition for over 20 years,” and have acknowledged that the name change occurred four years ago based on one complaint from one person. So I guess that means the event enjoyed wild success for 16 years, despite being burdened by the evil “E” word in its name. Amazing.
Please keep writing!
Judging by the blog stats, a number of you are writing to City Hall. If you haven’t written, see below for contact information. It would be particularly great to get letters from Walnut Creek residents. While one complaint from one person a few years ago led to this silly name change, it appears it will take more than that to convince stubborn city officials to welcome back the Easter Bunny.
Contacting EasterBunnyDude
Responding to increasing demand — now totalling 3 requests — you can e-mail EasterBunnyDude directly at easterbunnydude@hotmail.com.
Walnut Creek began responding to letters from Friends of the Easter Bunny today and told one loyal follower that they don’t plan on welcoming the Easter Bunny back to the parks. In the process, they’ve come up with a new description for the Easter Spring Egg Hunt.
It’s now: “The spring equinox celebration of vernal rebirth.”
You can’t make this stuff up! That’s actually how Brad Rovanpera described it in an e-mail that he sent, signed by city manager Gary Pokorny.
Can’t you hear the excitement in homes across Walnut Creek?
“Hey, Honey. Let’s take the kids to hunt for eggs at the Spring Equinox Celebration of Vernal Rebirth.”
“Yay, Daddy! Will the Spring Equinox Celebration of Vernal Rebirth Bunny be there, too?”
“We can only hope!”
At first, EasterBunnyDude thought that city officials might consider letting the Easter Bunny back in town. It’s unbelievable at the lengths — literally — people will go to avoid the dreaded “E” word. When people dig deep into a thesaurus to find language like this, it shows they’re burrowed deeper into their postion than the Easter Bunny burrows into his hutch in the off-season.
No word yet on whether they’ll organize a Spring Equinox Celebration of Vernal Rebirth parade. I can just hear Bing Crosby crooning the lyrics: ”In your Spring Equinox Celebration of Vernal Rebirth bonnet. With all the frills upon it. You’ll be the grandest lady in the Spring Equinox Celebration of Vernal Rebirth parade…”
So please keep writing. And tell your friends. Those of you in the Bay Area, please be heard. It’s time to take back the Easter Bunny.
Also, thanks to a Friend of the Easter Bunny who took the time and effort to obtain a more Easter Bunny-friendly domain name, making it easier to find this blog. You can also reach Friends of the Easterbunny at www.defendtheeasterbunny.com Two rabbit ears up for him!
Wow! The reaction to the Hannity and Colmes appearance is amazing! Thanks to the Easter Bunny supporters who took time to write to a blog that has a name that was too long to print on the TV screen. EasterBunnyDude learned from that one.
With attention peaking, now’s the time to turn up the heat and make sure that Walnut Creek city hall understands how its harebrained idea is making the city a national symbol of political correctness gone crazy.
Several of you requested contact information for the city, so here goes. All this information comes from the city hall Web site, so we’re not providing anything that isn’t publicly available.
Give them a call, or send them an e-mail. If they listened to just one person five years ago, let’s hope they’ll listen to scores of us today. And let us know what they say. EasterBunnyDude will post the replies you send here.
Hi everyone, and welcome to this hastily conceived blog.Before we get started, here’s a little bit about this blog and EasterBunnyDude. (Yeah, I know it’s a weird name, but I’m trying to do this quickly and it’s the best I could do on short notice.)
EasterBunnyDude is a resident of Walnut Creek, Calif., who discovered a few weeks ago that the city has banned all things Easter. No Easter Bunny. No Easter Egg Hunt. But we do have a Spring Bunny and a Spring Egg Hunt. Kind of like Whoville, without those whacky dwarfs. We live in the shadow of Mt. Diablo, named after the devil himself, which may explain a few things.
In the Easter Bunny vernacular, I was hopping mad. After my initial shock wore off, I scrawled a letter to the editor of the local paper, giving the needle to those harebrains who would give the Bunny the boot. And that was that. Or so I thought. Interest in this story increased like, well, rabbits procreating on Viagra.
Within hours, the phone started ringing. First the San Francisco Chronicle, then a couple of Bay Area TV stations caught wind of the story. People in nearby cities called to share their thoughts. The Chronicle story appeared on other newspapers’ Web sites. Then Fox News, where EasterBunnyDude learned about makeup. (Shaky-cam video and offscreen cackle courtesy of EasterBunnyDude’s daughter.) And more local radio, including KSFO. Satellite radio, too. All from one letter to the editor in the local paper.
I never planned for this kind of response, nor did I expect it. I’m not from the radical right, nor do I have any religious or political agenda. I’m just one guy who got tired of seeing traditions diluted and city officials cave to just one person — one person — who complained five years ago.
So while interest is hot, I started this blog to chronicle the Don’t-Call-it-the-Easter-Bunny saga. I don’t know where it’ll go or where it’ll end. We’ll just have to let the Easter Bunny run his course and hope that the Walnut Creek city officials come to their senses and see the light. Let them know what you think. I’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, hare’s here’s the story of Easter, Walnut Creek style.
An Easter Bunny’s Tale
This is the story of the Easter Spring Bunny. And if you’re a good little boy or girl, and live near Walnut Creek, Calif., you can have breakfast with the Easter Spring Bunny and even take part in the bunny’s Easter Spring Egg Hunt. Don’t you just love hunting for Spring Eggs? They’re much more colorful than those drab Fall Eggs.
You see, Walnut Creek isn’t like all those other cities that invite the Easter Bunny to town. He’s just a little too controversial. We invite the Spring Bunny (because he’s a B-list celebrity, works cheaper and is in far less demand), and keep that nasty Easter Bunny from endangering our parks and harming our children. But that’s a good thing, because that gives the EasterBunny time to attend other events, like the White House Easter Egg Roll, run by people who aren’t as enlightened as those of us in Walnut Creek.
And if you like that, boys and girls, you’ll love Christmas the holidays. You see, Christmas the word that many use to describe that big holiday in December is a bad word in Walnut Creek, too. It’s tied to religion and that’s a bad thing. So every Christmas holiday season, we decorate a big tree downtown and call it the Christmas Holiday Tree. We put it up next to a very large Menorah, which is a symbol of Hanukkah for the Jewish faith. The two look very nice together, and allow people of different faiths to celebrate their traditions. But for some reason, Christmas that traditional word is a bad religious word, and Menorah isn’t. I suppose that’s because no one thinks that we should call the Menorah it the Holiday Candelabra. And they’re right. We’ll just stick it to Christmas, that commonly used word for now, anyway. Kind of like the Grinch.
So boys and girls, if you’re tired of traditional celebrations that welcome everyone, Walnut Creek is a great place to live. Easter and Christmas Common names for holidays don’t exist here, and I hear we’re working on St.Patrick’s and St. Valentine’s Day those saintly offensive days in February and March, too. Word is that they’ll be replaced by Drink-Green-Beer-til-you-Drop Day and Give-Your-Sweetie-a-Rose-or-Else Day. And we’ll all live blandly ever after.
