The Old Man and The Rabbit

A tail or is it a tale?

The Old Man looked upon The Rabbit with disdain. While He envied The Old Rabbit, the newer generation was much like the new generation of his own kind: insolent, incorrigible, and lazy in the things that mattered.

They had their bad qualities too.

The Old Man saw The Rabbit each morning when he went for his walk. The Rabbit taunted him, yea dared The Old Man to begin the chase. But The Old Man didn’t get to be his age by chasing rabbits. Women were a different story, but not rabbits. He would have none of it, even if he were 30 years younger and agile enough to go for a chase. He saved the task of chasing rabbits for toddlers and hawks. Both were more suited to the chase.

No, The Old Man tried to ignore The Rabbit each morning, while tipping his hat to The Old Rabbit only a few feet away. The differences between the two generations were stark and becoming starker the longer he lived.

The best The Old Man could muster towards The Rabbit was a grunt, but he did that effortlessly throughout the day, so that might not count as something untoward.

In the broadest sense, The Old Man envied the agility and youthfulness of The Rabbit, but that’s as far as his envy went. With youthfulness comes risk. With risk comes danger. With danger comes…well, government intervention.

Not that The Rabbit would ever ask for it, but if he did, The Old Man would mete out only one piece of advice: imitate The Old Rabbit. He got where he was by not taking unnecessary chances. A boring life but a much safer one.