May Day

There are a number reasons for the celebration of May Day, the first of May:  As a Pagan high holy day, an ancient fertility festival that could cause St. Valentine to blush, a Wiccan holiday, a saint’s feast day, or as International Workers’ Day. 

May Day is one of the oldest holidays in the world, originally celebrated as the Festival of Beltane by the ancient Druids throughout the British Isles.  To the Druids, Beltane was the second most important day of the year, with Samhane, on November 1, being number one.  Those days neatly divided the year in half to the Druids, and both are half-way points (more or less) between the solstices.  (Beltane)

Beltane, falling in the spring, was the Druid New Year.   As such, it involved ritual cleansing, and nothing cleans better than fire.  Beltane, which in Celtic means “fires of Bel,” was originally a fire festival, and still is in many places in Britain.  Cattle, for instance, were passed between (or over) fires as a way of purifying them and insuring fertility in the coming season.  (Beltane)

But, more than anything else, and undoubtedly cementing its popularity, Beltane was a fertility rite. (History and Origin)  In short, “...it was a time of unabashed sexuality and promiscuity...” where even marriages were ignored for one night. (Herne)  If not an outright orgy, it certainly came close.  If this were their second favourite holiday, you have to wonder what kind of party they were having in November.

By the time the Romans arrived in the British Isles, they were already celebrating the First of May that fell within Floralia – a five day celebration honoring Flora, the goddess of flowers.  Beltane and Floralia combined to give us, more or less, the May Day that we now know.  (History and Origin)

It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that Maypoles became popular, though trees have always represented fertility and virility.  Almost every village in Britain came to have a Maypole.  Some were erected solely for the holiday, but in larger towns, such as London, the poles were permanent. (History and Origin)  It wasn’t until the 19^th century that Maypoles became braided with streamers that dancers would use as part of their merriment, which included entrapping the person you wished to marry, if only in the very loosest sense of the word, and if only for the night. (Ross)  And along with May Poles were May Baskets.  May Baskets were flowers that were left on people’s doorsteps, generally those who were not able to attend the festivities, or a way of letting somebody know your amorous intentions. (Fox)

The Puritans, as wont they should, discouraged the practice of May Day, seeing it as the Pagan celebration that it was.  When everybody finally got tired of the Puritans, the celebrations returned, but never to their prior glory. (History and Origin)

And who hasn’t celebrated Walpurgisnacht?  The first of May happens to be one of several days that have been set aside to honor St. Walburga, who “helped St. Boniface bring Christianity to 8th Century Germany.”  (Ross)

To fully understand how May Day morphed into International Workers’ Day, one must understand the Industrial Revolution, and that means we’re back in England.  Whereas the Industrial Revolution was truly a revolution in that it caused profound and lasting changes to the entire world, unlike other political revolutions it was much slower, and as such, we can’t point to an Independence Day or a Bastille Day that clearly marks the beginning. (Montagna)

Throughout the 18^th century there were improvements in agriculture, such as crop rotation, irrigation, pest control, and improved implements, all which made it possible to feed more people with less farmers.  As well, there were improvements in technology that made the entire idea of a factory possible.  And this created a demand for factory workers at the same time fewer farmers were needed, making it possible and profitable for populations to shift from the country to the city.  A good example of this is the British textile industry.  Inventions such as the flying shuttle, the rolling spinner, and the jenny steadily moved what was once a labour-intensive cottage industry to urban-based factories. (Montagna)

But more importantly, there were significant improvements in energy.  At first, factories had to be located near the power source, such as running water, or simply near the raw resources, such as with iron ore.  Steam made it possible to locate a factory virtually anywhere, such as existing population centers or near a seaport.  As well, improvements in transportation, namely the railways, made it possible to reliably move raw goods to the factories, as well as distribute the finished product, and even move workers.  And those workers moved to the cities. (Montagna)

Growth in cities was generally unregulated, with no thought of how to handle so many people living in so small an area.  Cities became “crowded, dirty and unregulated.”  And conditions in the factories were worse.  Typically, work days were 12-14 hours long, often seven days a week, and included women and children, which were preferred over men, because they were more nimble and could be paid less. (Montagna)

The factories were unhealthy at best, and down-right dangerous at worse.  There was no such thing as workers’ compensation, health benefits, or even sick days.  Unless you worked, you were replaced.  Workers were seen as nothing more than a disposable commodity.  Any number of Charles Dickens’ books, such as Oliver Twist and Hard Times, as well as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, offers a fairly accurate insight into the lives of workers both in Great Britain and the United States. (Montagna)

It was a slow process for the workers to realize that they could change the conditions they were forced to live and work under, and they realized that change could only come about if they were united. (Montagna)

The idea of having a “workers’ holiday” originated in Australia on April 21, 1856.  It was basically a one day general strike in support of an eight hour work day, and not intended to be a yearly celebration, which showed the workers that, through solidarity, they could enact changes in the work place, as well as their living conditions in general. (Luxumburg)

America was the next country to take up the cause, 30 years later in 1886.  And it was the Americans that decided “the day of universal work stoppage” should be May 1.  On that day over 200,000 workers left work and demanded an eight hour work day.  Unfortunately, the American workers were met with violent resistance by those who feared it would lead to Socialism, or a lower profit margin, and so, by any means, they must be stopped. (Luxumburg)

Ironically, it was the Hay Market Massacre, which happened in 1886 in Chicago, Illinois, that led to May Day being celebrated as the International Workers’ Day, an official holiday in over 60 countries throughout the world. (Chase)  Following a non-violent May Day celebration that year, a second demonstration in favour of an eight hour work day was called for on the 3^rd of May.  Rumours that the speakers were agitating for violence (which they clearly were not) caused the police to begin dispersing an already thinning crowd, at which point a bomb was thrown into the police ranks.  It has never been clear who threw the bomb, but it nonetheless caused the police to fire into the crowd.  At least eight demonstrators were killed, as well as eight policemen.  As a result, several of the organizers were arrested and eventually hung for the deaths of the police, deaths they clearly did not cause (some weren’t even present during the massacre).  It was ostensibly their political views that went counter to big business for which they were executed. (Chase)

In Europe, just three years later, 400 delegates from throughout the world met at the International Workers’ Congress, where they demanded an eight hour work day and decided the way to achieve that would be through a world-wide work stoppage, on May 1^st.  As earlier in Australia, it was supposed to have been a one day demonstration, but “...it was enough to celebrate the May Day simply one time in order that everyone understand and feel that May Day must be a yearly and continuing institution....”  Even after their demand for an eight hour work day was achieved, May Day continued to be celebrated as an International Workers’ Holiday, especially in communist countries such as Cuba and the former Soviet Union. (Luxumburg)

Using “May Day” as a distress word, though, has nothing to do with any of the various holidays that fall on the first of May.  Rather, it comes from the French phrase for “Come help me,” “Venez m’aider,” which is pronounced (more or less) “ven-nay may-day.”  It is always given three times in a row to keep it from being confused with somebody asking about a possible “Mayday,” or perhaps simply planning this year’s celebration.  In the United States, it is a federal offense to broadcast a false “Mayday.” (Mayday)

 

Work Cited

“Beltane.”  06 July 2007.  BBC:  Religions.  13 Aug. 2012.    http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/paganism/holydays/beltane_1.shtml

Chase, Eric.  “The Brief Origins of May Day.”  1993.  Industrial Workers of the World:  A Union for All Workers.  13 Aug. 2012.  http://www.iww.org/en/history/library/misc/origins_of_mayday

Fox, Selena.  “Beltane Lores and Rites.”  2012.  Circle Sanctuary.  13 Aug. 2012.  http://www.circlesanctuary.org/pholidays/beltane.htm

Herne.  “Beltane.”  2010.  The Celtic Connection.  13 Aug. 2012.  http://wicca.com/celtic/akasha/beltane.htm

“History and Origin.”  TheHolidaySpot.com.  13 Aug. 2012.    http://www.theholidayspot.com/mayday/history.htm

Luxumburg, Rosa.  “What Are the Origins of May Day?”  1894.  Marxist.org.  13 Aug. 2012.  http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1894/02/may-day.htm

“Mayday.”  15 June 2012.  Wikipedia.  13 Aug. 2012.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday

Montagna, Joseph A.  “The Industrial Revolution.”  2012.  Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute.  13 Aug. 2012.  http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/2/81.02.06.x.html

Ross, Samuel.  “May Day:  A cornucopia of holidays.”  2012.  Infoplease.com.  http://www.infoplease.com/spot/mayday.html

Hero

I was recently watching the national news, and they featured the story of a man who "leaped" into a car that was rolling backwards down the street with nobody inside.  They called the man a hero.  However, when they showed the man's actions in real time, the car was maybe going three miles an hour with no danger of going into a busy intersection, or for that matter hitting anybody or anything, and there were no small children strapped in the backseat in danger of dying, or even just being overly frightened.  Truly, if left on its own, the car would've come to a stop probably no more than ten feet from where that man "heroically" climbed through its window.  Yet, it was on the national news (which was more than likely only because they had video of it), and they called the man a hero... even though nothing he did was heroic in the least.

Albert Camus, in his novel The Plague, addresses the idea of a hero.  To Camus, you are not a hero if you are doing the job you are supposed to be doing, or if you are doing what anybody should be doing.  And I agree.  A firefighter is not being a hero simply because she squirts water on a burning building.  Running into that burning building to save somebody when she knows her own safety is in danger might not even be considered heroic.  After all, isn't that what a firefighter is supposed to do?  Isn't that what she's trained to do?  

We've overused the term "hero" so much that it's become a cliché.  It truly means nothing to be a hero if all it requires is that somebody wear a hat.  Take me.  I was in the Navy.  I wore a Navy hat.  That did not make me a hero.  And that's because I didn't do anything heroic.  There's nothing heroic about sitting in front of a teletype reading garbled messages.  Even if I had deciphered a message that saved the world from nuclear annihilation it wouldn't've made me a hero.  It just would've made me good at my job.  Joining the service, being a cop or a firefighter, does not make somebody a hero.  That requires doing something heroic. 

And even then, we shouldn't confuse bravery with being a hero.  That guy who "leaped" into the rolling car could've gotten his toes run over had he not been careful, and I'm sure that really would've hurt.  Risking the chance of pain, though, is not being a hero.  It's just being brave, at most.

My father saw the flag go up on Iwo Jima – you know, the famous one where the six Marines raised the Stars and Stripes on top of Mount Suribachi.  He was there. To this day, he still doesn't call those six fellow-Marines heroes.  He thinks they were idiots for risking their lives doing something that didn't need to be done, at least, not at that moment.  And my father has never considered himself a hero for anything he did during World War II, or Korea, for that matter.  I suspect he may have, but those are stories he's never shared, and I don't suspect he ever will.

Don't get me wrong.  There are really people who act heroically, and that makes them heroes, and we should recognize them as such.  If a soldier gets shot in combat, that really doesn't make her a hero.  It makes her unlucky.  And, truly, what choice did she have?  Desertion in the face of the enemy is still an offense you can be shot for.  You can't be a hero for doing something we'd shoot you for if you didn't.  However, if that wounded soldier keeps crawling back onto the battlefield to save her buddies, and every time she goes back out, she gets shot again... but she keeps going out... and she doesn't stop until she's dead or all of her comrades have been pulled to safety... that woman is a hero.

A hero is somebody who does something heroic.  A hero goes beyond what we would expect anybody to do in that situation.  Leaping off of a bridge onto the top of an out-of-control-bus, climbing through the side window and stopping it before it plunges off the side of a cliff... yeah, I'd call that heroic, but only if there are people on that bus that needed to be saved.  But there's more to it than that.  For an action to be heroic, you first must have a choice.  You must choose to run into that burning building when you don't have to.  You must choose to go back out onto that battlefield when you don't have to.  You must choose to jump off that bridge onto that bus when the chances of stopping it are next to none, along with your chances of surviving any of it.  But it's more than that.  You must do something that nobody would find fault with you if you didn't.  Dude!  You've been shot five times.  Stay here and let somebody else rescue the other soldiers who are wounded.  That's being a hero.  That's not something you will see everyday.  It is not a common occurrence.

A true hero is rare, and it needs to stay that way.  Because when we call people who crawl through the window of a slowly moving car that is in no danger of hurting anybody a hero, it lessens the acts of those people who truly act heroically.  And if you've ever met a true hero, we owe them that.

It's Always 4:20 in Heaven

From the time I was a young boy
they told up in the sky,
there's a place that's called Heaven,
you go there when you die.

A place where everyone's happy,
a place with want no more.
It's a place where time stands still
at twenty after four.

It's always 4:20 in Heaven,
in Heaven way up in the sky.
It's always 4:20 in Heaven.
In Heaven you're always high.

Everything is green in Heaven.
The buds fall in your hand.
No stems or seeds in Heaven.
You're in the promised land.

It's always 4:20 in Heaven.
It's always a third after four.
It's always 4:20 in Heaven.
It is always time for more.

Don't cry when my time has ended
Shed no tears when I die
I'll be way up in heaven
and eternally high.

('Cause) It's always 4:20 in Heaven,
in Heaven way up in the sky.
It's always 4:20 in Heaven.
In Heaven you're always high.

Comon, everybody!
Sing along!
Who needs a harp
when you got a bong?

It's always 4:20 in Heaven,
in Heaven way up in the sky.
It's always 4:20 in Heaven.
But why wait until you die?

One Fine Day in the Mid-Nineteenth Century Deep in the Woods of British Columbia

Richard:  There!  Mark it down, my good man.  A new species of bird!  I think I'll call it a Tit.

Peter:  And a fine name, Sir Richard.  But what kind of tit?

Richard:  And right you are, Peter.  Bloody well done.  There can be lots of different kinds of tits.  And when we run out of tits, we can call them Boobies!

Peter:  Brilliant!  But what shall we call this one?

Richard:  It was in the bush, so I say it's a Bushtit.  Now doesn't that just make you giggle.  Like the Dickcissel.  Now there's a silly name.  After all, it's not a truly good name if it's not just a bit silly, too, now, is it?  Now let's be off, and if we're lucky, we'll find a pecker or two before nightfall.  And if we're really lucky, we'll see some hooters!

4:20

It can often be very difficult to pinpoint the origin of a word or a phrase.  For instance, who said, “Groovy!” for the first time?  What deprived mind conceived such a combination of letters?  Sure, you can trace its use back in documents, but that can take you only so far.  You may find that its first recorded use was in episode 62 of “Gilligan’s Island” (or not), but that doesn’t tell you that a writer for that show created the term, although I wouldn’t doubt if one did.  The word could’ve been in use in limited circles for years before then. 

When trying to decide on the origin of the term 4:20, it’s even harder.  Those in the best position to know probably can’t remember.  4:20, for those of you who don’t know or can’t remember, has come to represent the entire marijuana smoking, weed toking, pot ingesting, and cannabis molesting sub-culture.  Just as every good beer drinker dutifully recognizes beer-thirty, every die-hard stoner recognizes bong-twenty.  4:20 – the time of the afternoon to get high.  And thus, the twentieth of April, the twentieth day of the fourth month, 4/20, has become the most sacred of all days for every red-eyed, munchie-craving stoner everywhere, who will all be happy to show you how they put the high in high holy days.

But why 4:20?  Why not 2:15?  9:37?  Noon?  All the above?

When trying to figure something such as where the term 4:20 originated, perhaps one of the best places to start is by eliminating the possibilities.  One rumor of where the term comes from is that there are 420 chemicals in pot.  Not true, says Americans for Safe Access, a marijuana advocacy group.  According to them there are “...483 different identifiable chemical constituents known to exist in cannabis.”  (Medical Marijuana)  And then they go on to list them, but you’ll just have to take my word on that. 

Another possibility was that 420 was the police code... somewhere... for weed addicts.  “We’ve got a 420 in Progress at the Disc Golf Course.”  Never mind that that’s redundant.  There’s one way to find out if that’s true.  In the terms of modern parlance, google it!  I simply put in:  “Is 420 a police code?”  It’s a well asked question, according to Google.  And the answer I found at an entire site devoted to squashing rumors was, “No.”  There are no police departments in the country that use 420 as a code for a couple of brothers passing a spliff.  (Mikkelson)

On the other hand, Senate Bill 420, which became law in California in 2003 made it legal to use medicinal marijuana.  (Senate Bill)  However, the term 420 was around long before 2003.  And I know that because while searching for the police codes, I stumbled across a site where somebody else had already done the work for me.  Aside from having found what they claimed was the right answer, they also debunked many others that I hadn’t even thought of, such as that the 20^th of April is the best time to plant marijuana (as if a weed needs a best time!), or that when the Grateful Dead toured they always stayed in room 420.  (Mikkelson)  Wow.  Some people have really put a lot of effort in this.

According to a quasi-reliable source, 420 is believed to have come into existence in 1971 at San Rafael High School in San Rafael, California.  There were these twelve dudes, you see, and they all got into the habit of getting high every day at pretty much the same time after school... by the statue... at 4:20.  And that became their code.  You’re sitting in second hour algebra... or is it French... hard to tell, you can’t speak it... and your buddy nods and says, “420.”  Enough said.  And from there, quite naturally, it spread.  (Mikkelson)  All the cool stuff starts in California.

But is that true?  I mean, it’s not that I don’t trust Ms. Mikkelson, or Ms. Witmer, or Mr. Grimm, or any of the other numerous sources on the Internet that all confirm Mikkelson’s story.  But it’s just what my mama always told me:  Trust, but verify.  So I did.  I looked it up on Wikipedia.  And, by golly, there is a San Rafael High School.  And the High School has a statue of Louis Pasteur on its campus... the same statue where those darned stoners used to hang out each day at 4:20.  And get this!  Louis Pasteur has nothing to do with marijuana!  And if that’s not enough, it’s a high school.  And, really, if it’s on Wikipedia, then you know it must be true.

 

Work Cited

Grimm, Ryan.  “What 420 Means: The True Story Behind Stoners' Favorite Number.”  25 May 2011.  The Huffington Post.  19 Apr. 2012.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/20/what-420-means-the-true-s_n_188320.html

“Medical Marijuana.”  7 Dec. 2006.  Pro/Con.org.  19 Apr. 2012.  http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000636

Mikkelson, Barbara.  “Claim:  The Term ‘420’ entered drug parlance as a term signifying the time to light up a joint.”  13 June 2008.  Snopes.com.  19 Apr. 2012.  http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/420.asp

“San Rafael High School.”  2 Dec. 2011.  Wikipedia.  19 Apr. 2012.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Rafael_High_School

“Senate Bill:  SB 420 Chaptered Bill Text.”  12 Oct. 2003.  California State Government.  19 Apr. 2012.  http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/03-04/bill/sen/sb_0401-0450/sb_420_bill_20031012_chaptered.html

Witmer, Denise.  “What Does ‘420’ Mean?”  2012.  About.com:  Teens.  19 Apr. 2012.  http://parentingteens.about.com/cs/marijuana/a/420meaning.htm

The New 19 Pack from Corona.  Because you can never have too much beer. 

The Easter Bunny

Easter is quintessentially the Christian holiday.  The resurrection of Jesus, after all, is what the entire faith is based on.  But the Easter Bunny?  Comon!  To understand what the Easter Bunny has to do with modern day Christianity, like most things, we have to go way back, in this case to the ancient Saxons who lived in northern Europe before Jesus walked the earth.  (Duncan)

The Saxon’s “goddess of dawn, spring, and fertility” was Eostre, or Eastre, (Soniak) and every spring they would celebrate her return “with an uproarious festival....” (Correll-Wright)  Included in that festival were various symbols of fertility, which included, quite naturally, eggs and rabbits. (Soniak)  After all, what could be more fertile than a rabbit?  There is a reason why people say, “Hump like bunnies.”  Rabbits reach sexual maturity very quickly, and they can become pregnant while they are pregnant.  So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that they have been a fertility symbol for a long, long time. (Easter Bunny)

It was in the Second Century after the birth of Christ that Christian missionaries made their way into Northern Europe.  Whatever one might think of the early Christian missionaries, they weren’t stupid.  They knew that if they were to have any hope of converting the Pagans, or staying alive, for that matter, then they couldn’t tell them to stop having a good time.  That would have to wait until later.  Therefore, it was common to allow the Pagans to continue celebrating their holidays, but in a more Christian manner, and Easter was no different.  (Correll-Wright)  “The Eostre festival occurred around the same time as the Christians' celebration of Christ's resurrection, so the two celebrations became one.”  The Pagans got Christianity, and the Christians got the bunny and the eggs.  (Soniak)

In modern times, the first mention of the Easter Bunny was in 1682 by the German writer Georg Franck von Franckenau, who wrote about the “German tradition of an Easter Hare bringing Easter Eggs for the children.”  (Easter Bunny)  The Easter Bunny made its way to America in the 1700s with the Germans who settled in the Pennsylvania Dutch country.  Originally, children would build “nests” so “Oschter Haws” would place colourful eggs there... but only if they were good.  (Duncan)  As the tradition spread throughout the country, the “nests” morphed into increasingly more elaborate baskets.  (Easter Traditions:  Easter Bunny History)  The first edible Easter bunnies, which were made out of pastry and sugar, also come from Germany dating back to the early 1800s.  (Mooney)

 

So why does the date for Easter Sunday hop around more than a bunny?

It wasn’t until 325 C.E. that Emperor Constantine, at the Council of Nicaea, decreed that “...Easter shall be celebrated on the first Sunday that occurs after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox,” which is also known as the Paschal, or Passover, Full Moon.  Of course, not wanting to make anything that simple, it couldn’t just be any old full moon.  It had to be an ecclesiastical full moon, which isn’t necessarily a full moon at all. (Paschal Full Moon)

Here it is necessary to differentiate between an ecclesiastical calendar, which is based on the cycles of the moon as it orbits the earth and repeats itself every nineteen years, and a civil calendar, which is based on the earth’s relative position orbiting the sun.  The civil calendar is what most people in the Western world use to show up to work on Mondays.  The ecclesiastical calendar, which is based on 29 and 30 day lunar months, is what Easter is based on.  (Paschal Full Moon)

The first day of each lunar month is known as an ecclesiastical new moon, which can vary up to two days from the actual new moon.  Between March 8 and April 5 is the vernal equinox, the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere.  It is between those particular dates that only one ecclesiastical new moon will ever fall in any given year, and that particular ecclesiastical new moon marks the beginning of the Paschal lunar month.  The fourteenth day of the Paschal lunar month marks the Paschal full moon (whether the moon is full or not), and the first Sunday after that “full moon” is Easter.  (Paschal Full Moon)

Based on when Easter will be, all of the various observances associated with Easter are dated backwards.  Lent, the Christian period of fasting, begins 46 days prior to Easter.  It represents the 40 days that Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness, plus the six Sundays that fall during that time.  Sundays were meant to be a day of celebration; therefore, they were not originally seen as fasting days.  46 days before Easter is a Wednesday, Ash Wednesday.  And the Tuesday before that Wednesday is Mardi Gras, which is French for “Fat Tuesday.”  If you were going to have to give up everything fun for the next six and a half weeks, then it only makes sense to party all you can before that.  And, of course, there is Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday.  As well, the Sunday after Easter in England is known as Low Sunday, and the following Monday and Tuesday are Hocktide, which, apparently, you have to be British to understand.  (Correll-Wright)

 

Work Cited

Correll-Wright, Arlene.  “The History of Easter and the Easter Bunny.”  Plancy Pages Publishing.  20 Dec. 2013.  http://www.phancypages.com/newsletter/ZNewsletter2599.htm

Duncan, Sandi.  “Where Did the Easter Bunny Originate From?”  Life 123.  20 Dec. 2013.  http://www.life123.com/holidays/easter/easter-traditions/where-did-easter-bunny-originate.shtml

“Easter Bunny.”  19 Dec. 2013.  Wikipedia.  20 Dec. 2013.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Bunny

“Easter Traditions:  Easter Bunny History.”  2000.  Easter Bunny’s.Net.  20 Dec. 2013.  http://www.easterbunnys.net/easterbunnyhistory.htm

Mooney, Belinda.  “Where did the Easter Bunny Come from?  10 Apr. 2009.  Farmers’ Almanac.  20 Dec. 2013.  http://www.farmersalmanac.com/blog/2009/04/10/where-did-the-easter-bunny-come-from/

“Paschal Full Moon.”  16 Aug. 2013.  Wikipedia.  20 Dec. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paschal_Full_Moon

Soniak, Matt.  “Where Did The Easter Bunny Come From?”  29 Mar. 2013.  Mental Floss.  20 Dec. 2013.  http://mentalfloss.com/article/21411/where-did-easter-bunny-come

The Future

It was the asteroid.  They say it was the size of Delaware.  I don't really know how big Delaware was, but it was big enough, I reckon.  They say there's good in everything, no matter how bad it might be.  And the earth getting hit by an asteroid the size of Delaware was definitely bad.  Top of the list.  But it did kill all the zombies, and that was good.  Course it killed just about everybody else, too.  But people are tenacious.  We survived.  We survived to a post-apocalyptic future where everybody does their best to survive.  A future where everybody is constantly searching for the most valuable commodity known to humankind:  Toilet paper.