ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997               TAG: 9701270009
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: NORFOLK 
SOURCE: NANCY LEWIS THE VIRGINIAN PILOT


KIDNAPPERS RETURN WELL-TRAVELED BUNNY

Cornelia Holland wants to know who turned her wooden yard bunny into a world traveler.

And why.

Three young men recently came to Holland's home to return the ``well water'' bunny sign they said they'd taken two years ago.

They told her that her inanimate pet had accompanied them all over the United States and to Italy and Israel.

To back up their claim, they gave her 55 pictures of the little rabbit posed in famous places - the Statue of Liberty, the Dead Sea, the Lincoln Memorial. Even the Dallas Cowboys locker room.

Holland was dumbstruck. By the time she'd gathered her wits, the men were long gone. She'd got neither their names nor an explanation of why they'd picked her bunny, of all bunnies, to go along for the ride.

The 10-inch-tall rabbit is ``kind of beat up,'' Holland said. ``Looks like he's had a rough life.''

The white paint has faded to cream, and the inner aspects of the bunny's ears are drab orange instead of perky pink.

The stake that once held the sign upright amid the shrubs in Holland's front yard is gone, and the bunny's posterior is badly checked. There's even a big chip of wood missing from the tip of one upright ear. But the bunny still holds a sprig of flowers in its right front paw, and its facial expression is inquisitive as ever, Holland said.

``But that little bunny really got around, didn't he?'' Holland said, leafing through the pictures.

Finding the little white rabbit in many of the scenes is like trying to find Waldo in a ``Where's Waldo?'' puzzle. The well-traveled bunny can't be missed sitting on a railing overlooking the Shenandoah Valley, but you have to squint to find him taking a dip in the Dead Sea.

He's dwarfed by the Lincoln Memorial and disappears in the crowd boarding a New York City subway, but you can't miss him in the arms of Dallas Cowboy punter Mike Saxon.

The bunny looks downright plain against the ornate architecture of Venice, Italy, but he's bold as can be staring into the camera in front of the Statue of Liberty.

He's circled with pen in shots where he all but disappears into the background - standing in snow on a highway somewhere in the Western United States, for example.

The only picture that might hold a clue to the identity of the men who energized the rabbit is one of a boat, with the hare perched on the prow; the identification number on the craft's bow has been obliterated from the photo, though.

It's frustrating, said Holland, showing a photo of three men standing knee-deep in Dead Sea waters watching the cottontail take the plunge; the shot is from the chest down, so faces are missing.

His bravado is evident as he stands next to a mammoth in Washington's Smithsonian.

With her rabbit returned, Holland is looking for answers.

Holland speculates that the men who escorted her bunny here and there are in the Navy; all three sported short hair, she said.

She's sure someone will offer a clue, because, after all, ``You can't carry a bunny around with you all that time without someone noticing.''


LENGTH: Medium:   71 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Landmark News Service. 1. He's "kind of 

beat up," said Cornelia Holland of her wooden yard ornament, which

was returned recently after a two-year disappearance. 2. But the

mystery rabbit-nappers sent the bunny home with a photographic

account of his adventures, including a trip to the Statue of Liberty

(right).

by CNB