Here Comes Peter Cottontail

Sensitive Williamsburg nostrils smell pollen long before it's seen. You know it's there, because it makes you sick, even though lots of people go about their business mired in blissful oblivion.

As another beautiful spring unfolds throughout the Tidewater area--the most heavily pollinated region in the "United States of Whatever"--Gloucesterites break out brooms and sweep up the Daffodil Festival denouement mess, and the rest of us prepare for head-on collision with the Easter Day juggernaut.

Many fertile Williamsburgonians choose to place their Easter focus on a sugary, basket-stuffed mix of imported chocolate bunnies and domestic, yellow marshmallow chicks nestled alongside green-colored eggs sporting William & Mary logos.

Gloved and bonneted Bruton Parishners observe traditional themes of sacrifice and redemption, and suffer through appeals for antique harpsicord fund donations.

Frustrated by the Episcopalian congregation's complacent desire to warble its way through "Bread of Heaven" accompanied by a mere pipe organ ("Play ball!"), the Trump cloned, combed-over stewardship committee convinced the clergy to beseech the tonsil-challenged tightwads until they are meet and right so to deliver unto the Lord, in their mercy, $25K.

I'm sure I'm not alone when I confess that I'm afraid to approach the Eucharist table for fear I'll discover the clergy hocking Ginzu knives. "Just look at the thinness of this wafer! They dice! They slice! Radish floret?"

Williamsburg is home to a dear, twee reverend who is the spitting image of a young Gomer Pile.

The lucky minister recently wed, and the more sinful among us can easily imagine the following wedding night pillow talk: "Well, golllllly......Shazam!.....Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!"

Hippity hop, hop.

While newlyweds plan Memorial Day vacations, students stick allergy-clogged noses to the end of semester grindstone, and Sandra Day O'Conner hikes up her knee highs and delivers today's collegial address, well-informed residents find it impossible to purchase an Economist or Atlantic Monthly without incurring solicitation by bookstore magazines titles pimping "77,000 Ways to Lose Weight and Stuff Your Sorry, Cellulite-Covered Ass into Beach Ready Bathing Suit Fitness Certain to Attract the Attention of One Psycho Dude Rocking a Paul Bunyan Beard and Jealous, Starving Women Who Bought Our Competitor's Inferior '76,000 Ways to Drop the Junk in Your Trunk Without Losing Your Luscious Lady Lumps'."

Since weekend weather proved too unpredictable to forecast outdoor extravaganzas (other than Gloucester's afore mentioned, elephant ear festooned Daffodil Fest--yum), we feasted on soft pretzels and watched the films "Amelie" (French frolic), "The Squid and the Whale" (NY brownstone divorce saga) and "Bottle Rockets" (Additional Anderson/Wilson mayhem).

We also attended the spring production of Wm. & Mary's modern dance troop, Orchesis, which was great. Students choreographed the energetic event, so it was less abstract and more accessible than the faculty's avant-garde offerings.

Best of all, unlike the typical anorexic/manorexic bulimic ballet set, Orchesis is comprised of people with varying shapes and sizes shakin' their groove thangs down the bunny rabbit trail.

If prancing undergrads and fluttering butterflies aren't enough to lure you to jump behind the wheel of your car for a dogwoods inspection spin (because you fear the risk of an eternity spent smothered in a tourist-flavored traffic jam or perhaps a purgatory ensnarled in beach traffic), you can always stay home and contemplate the controversy surrounding our upcoming city council election (Honk if U Support John F. Hinckley, Jr.).

Wm. & Mary's new president (who's rumored to harbor personal, political ambition) is encouraging students, including those from out-of-state, to attempt to register to vote in our local election, even though they don't meet registration requirements.

Local yokels don't want the students to "go Berkley" on them and hijack the town council, thus placing the 'Burg's future in the reefer mad clutches of bong huffing quasi-citizens (we are never going to attract Bergdorf Goodman OR a decent head shop).

Best part is, Mr. President fails to explain how he can tell these out-of-staters, who pay mega tuition, that they're really in-state residents with the right to vote, while simultaneously sucking the living blood out of their parents' bank accounts.

I'm loath to sound like Bill the Cat, but that dude puts the "Ack!" in academic.

Meanwhile, back in the 'Burg, another legal pickle more sour than Aunt Bea's famous lip puckerers is fermenting greater scandal than the Gang of Four or the Chicago Seven....

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Governor's Land Fifteen! What-O!

Forget Lou Dobbs, the immigration fiasco, or the eminent domain debate. The GLF are determined to free Americans from the tyranny of mandatory country club membership. Huzzah!

Two Rivers Country Club is suing the plucky GLF for attempting to resign their membership in the bucks-up, multi-million dollar housing community's clubhouse and golf course, a mandatory homeowners purchase agreement.

Seems GLF members tired of the monthly dues of $80 for non-golfers, and $240-400 for golfers, plus the required $75 tab spent at the club dining room (maybe the cosmos were weak and the onion rings soggy).

They finally threw their monogrammed towels into the judicial ring upon learning that each community member would have to cough up an additional $5,000 for a Two Rivers improvement project.

Like all "power to the people" revolutions, this one comes at a price: the threat of potential abduction by the radical GLF will likely force heiress Patty Hearst to remain hidden indoors for an undetermined length of time, but hopefully not through the entire polo season.

On the other side of the tracks, Williamsburg police assured everyone that they would, indeed, finally mount a search for a poor, mentally-challenged, African American woman gone missing quite some time ago, whom we learned about after her desperate family contacted a Norfolk television station, thus prompting a tad tardy Gazette report regarding the incident.

Hurt by scornful remarks made by a few liberal souls fool enough to whisper allegations of racism and Social Darwinism, a police spokesperson insisted that, "Shoot! We would'a brung out the dogs and a'hunted fer her if we'd a known ya'll were gonna git so uppity. Rupert! Get me the water hose, would ya."

Okay, that part about the dogs and hose was fictional deviation from actual comments; but I still smell something in the air and it ain't magnolias.

It's a shame when decent people live in denial of reality. Maybe it's easier to do when privilege and spring's bounty of Cadbury Easter Eggs succor one's existence.

Sometimes people choose tradition instead of bricks to build a protective wall around their castle. Neither is wall invisible, and you can bang your head into both.

Author Philip K. Dick once said, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn't go away."

Hunt for truth as well as eggs, Williamsburg. Easter's on its way.

Achhooo!