The Peach-tree Adventure/bringing back memories of Clark the Killer

On Saturday Luke and I headed out in search of a peach tree. Jana and I (and pretty much all Laytons, it would seem) have an unashamed love of the peach. So we decided to put our love into action by planting a peach tree this year. In search of said tree we found ourselves at the IFA store in Salt Lake.

I hadn't been to IFA in probably 20 years. Returning brought back a flood of memories. Little about the store has changed since my mom dragged us there to pick up chicken and rabbit food more than 2 decades ago. Luke was in heaven, as the store was filled with baby chickens, ducks, and cut cuddly bunny rabbits.

I just about bought one of these baby chicks. How can you resist? They're soft, cute, and they look like everyone's favorite Easter treat - Peeps. But we weren't there for chicks. We were on a peach-tree mission, and a peach-tree mission it would remain. After a little while, I found the tree I was looking for, pried Luke away from the baby animals, and we were on our way.

I'm now proud to say I'm a peach-tree owner. Probably more proud of this than being an anything-else owner (home, iPhone, you name it). The only regret is I didn't plant one 2 or 3 years ago so we could be enjoying the peaches this year. O'well. I guess we'll just have to break down and buy a lug.

Anyway - enough of my rambling and now to the point: This experience brought back one of the more repressed memories stuck in the depths of my cranium. It's a brutal, awful, horrific memory. The memory of my father, Clark the Killer, murdering our soft bunny rabbit friends.

When I was little, we had quite a few bunny rabbits. And the bunny rabbits did what bunny rabbits do best: made more bunny rabbits. On several occasions I remember my mom gathering all the kids into the house while my dad went out with a hatchet to kill the Easter Bunny. We would sneak peeks out the window to see Clark the Killer hanging a rabbit on a large nail and skinning him. For the next week, my mom would make rabbit casserole, rabbit balls, rabbit-salad sandwhiches, you name it, if it has rabbit in it, she made it.

It almost makes me want to be a vegetarian. But nowadays when I'm chowing down a chicken sandwich, Big Mac or rabbit pot pie - I remember - I was never friends with this chicken/cow/rabbit. And if that doesn't work, I pretend the chicken/cow/rabbit was evil and deserves to be eaten. And if that doesn't work, I just remember how delicious red meat is and I'm good to go.