“I wish you could have known him before.”
“Before what?”
“Before it happened.”
“You’ll have to tell us more.”
“Before he changed. He used to be so different, amazing. There was something about him that used to just amaze people. He used to make people smile just because of who he was.”
“He’s made plenty of people smile. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“No. That is different. That became his character; a model he played. He really used to be something. He could make you laugh with a look, a witty comment, and he used to think. I remember how smart he was. He used to think all the time, about everything. Sometimes you’d think he’d never stop. I wonder, at times, what he would have done if it never happened.”
“If you could tell us, what did happen?”
“I think it was the war. I mean, I really don’t know. I say it was the war, but it could have been so many things, but I think that was it. Something happened, something made a change in him. You could tell he never could get over it.”
“When did you realize something happened?”
“Oh I don’t know. It started. I don’t know when. I think it was first in his eyes. Something that used to be so much of him wasn’t there. He’d stare off or he’d forget something and you could tell that it bugged him, but if he tried to think of what it was he couldn’t. We tried things, but nothing worked. He kept, slipping.”
“How was that on you, difficult?”
“Oh very. It was impossible. It tore me apart. It was like I was constantly looking at a shell. Someone that used to be my husband, but who wasn’t anymore.”
“How did he become how we know of him today?”
“That happened. I think he was coping. You know, we all cope. We all find ways to make ourselves different just to get by. The hunting, the repetitiveness, the funny language. I think it took him back to the war or a safety mechanism in some way.”
“Why the rabbit. What was the reasoning behind that?”
“That was pure marketing. He used to hunt deer, bears, moose, but none of those things they could put on the television to make funny. The rabbit was something they came up with, something you all found funny.”
“You sound unhappy, but wasn’t his fame something to be proud of?”
“Why should it have been? He never got past it. He never healed. His whole life became a repetitious episode. They had him strung up in pointless circles, said it was treatment, and it was all good and fine as long as everyone laughed when he pointed a gun and said wabbit. But I miss him. I miss my dear Elmer.”
NPR interview with the late Mrs. Elenoir J. Fudd speaking of her husband. Elenoir passed away in her sleep last Thursday at the age of 86. She is left behind with her three grown children, her orphan charity and the legacy of her late husband.
