St. Patrick’s Day is tomorrow, which means that Easter is several weeks away. Easter reminds me of chocolate rabbits. Eating a chocolate rabbit reminds me there’s a better rabbit to eat: a barbecued rabbit.

If my memory serves me correctly, I was an 8-year-old towheaded young’un when I first ate barbecued rabbit. My maternal grandfather introduced me to the succulent taste of barbecued rabbit.

As I watched all those Bugs Bunny cartoons growing up, I never once thought about how a barbecued Bugs Bunny would taste. From time to time, however, I did wonder what a fried roadrunner would taste like. To this day, Wylie Coyote and I have never tasted fried roadrunner. I imagine roadrunner tastes much like a scrawny chicken. And I say, I say, son, there’s no way a roadrunner would taste like Foghorn J. Leghorn. Rooster Leghorn would have made a great chicken stew.

After I ate that first piece of barbecued rabbit provided by my grandfather, I was hooked. Barbecued rabbit is good. Why Elmer Fudd preferred to roast rabbits, I will never understand. It became quite obvious to me at an early age that rabbits are meant to be barbecued. Just before said rabbit comes off the heat, I like to apply barbecue sauce to it. I prefer my homemade barbecue sauce that contains ketchup (or catsup), molasses, chili sauce, liquid smoke and several secret ingredients.

The perfect side dish to go with barbecued rabbits? Well, glazed carrots. And don’t forget the salad, which at least must have leafy lettuce, shredded carrots, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumbers and sliced red onion.

After practically each meal of barbecued rabbit, I noticed something strange occurring in my grandfather’s backyard. The number of rabbits in his rabbit hutch would diminish.

Then one day, while gnawing on a piece of barbecued rabbit, it dawned on me that perhaps some of the very rabbits I had been playing with the day before were now on a platter before me.

I had to ask my grandfather the question: “Did I play with these rabbits yesterday?”

His answer: “Yes.”

My response: “This is some good rabbit.”

Hey, those rabbits were not my pets.

As for those rabbits that survived, well, their population increased. You know how rabbits are when it comes to multiplying.

Fast forward to when I was 23. I was walking out the back door of my apartment when I saw a rabbit in the garden. I threw a big rock at it, in an effort to scare it away. Instead, the rock struck its head, killing. I must have thrown, for the first time in my life, a Jim “Catfish” Hunter fastball for a strike.

No use letting a dead rabbit go to waste. So, I dressed it and barbecued it.

Don’t worry, all you rabbits out there. That was a one-time only throw. I no longer throw rocks at rabbits. Doing so will tire my arm. I need my arm to apply barbecue sauce to barbecued rabbits.

These days, I catch my rabbits. That’s right, I catch the rabbits destined to be barbecued. I go my rabbit supplier, select a couple of  frozen rabbits and have the supplier toss them to me. That way I can say I “caught” the rabbits.

This year, I going after the Easter Bunny. That would be one heck of a barbecued rabbit, served with chocolate sauce, I’m sure.

Mike Voss covers the city of Washington for the Washington Daily News. Of course, he would never eat barbecued Easter Bunny. Who would bring him Easter eggs every Easter if he ate the Easter Bunny?