Standing in the most ancient IGA in the country on New Year's Eve, a very old man in line behind me at the check-out asked this question of me. "Are you going to have a good New Year?" I said, "I hope so.'' He then proceeded to tell me he had had good luck his entire 87 years because upon waking on the first day of the beginning of each month of his life, he utters the words: Rabbit, Rabbit. I just looked at him, I am certain in a very odd way & asked him to spell what he had just said to me. "R A B B I T" is that he repeated back to me.
I went back to the home of my friend Marie where we stay in Upperville, VA & proceeded to google this strange custom, finding it is indeed an unusual way to insure good luck for a new year or for year-round oratory protection (first thing said on the first day of each month, it must be said before anything else for luck to be yours). The rabbit represents leaping into the new. A rabbit's foot being good luck for hunters coming of age, a symbol of a young boys first kill, the foot then is cut from the rabbit & kept for future luck hunting~not sure if this part of the research has anything to do with the leaping up on New Year's Day sputtering the words Rabbit Rabbit. I was raised by old world people, old world people are superstitious, therefore I am also somewhat superstitious, I was not going to wake up and not say it. So, I will let you know if Rabbit Rabbit has a change of luck in the year 2011. By the way, this is the year of the rabbit in the Chinese Zodiac...coincident? you tell me.
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