Look to the groundhog for brighter days

If there were “dog days of winter,” we would be in them. We would be in those cold, goose-bumpy days, when we watch the thermometer plummet and our heating bills soar. Those days when we begin to notice the stacks of firewood we were sure would see us through the winter have nearly disappeared.

During these days, some folks begin to suffer from seasonal affective disorder, more commonly called the winter blues. Once a patient is diagnosed, doctors prescribe spending time lying in front of natural light lamps, hoping the bright-light therapy will dispel the cloud of depression caused by the shorter, colder, darker days of winter.

Just when the majority of us are beginning to feel we need a lamp of our own, the promise of relief peeps over the horizon – the promise of spring on Groundhog Day.

That’s the day famous groundhogs, mostly in the East, forecast the coming of spring. If Punxsutawney Phil, the most famous of the famous furry little weathermen, sees his shadow, he will scurry back to his hole, (after all the photo-ops of course), to wait out another six weeks of winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow, he’ll hang out for awhile, enjoying the promise of an early spring.

The truth is, these little guys don’t have a very good record for prognostication. Despite the fact their promoters say their predictions are 75 to 90 percent right, Punxsy Phil himself, said to be “the Seer of Seers, the Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators and Weather Prophet Extraordinary,” has only been right only 39 percent of the time since they first started recording his predictions in 1887.

Yes, this little woodchuck, said to be the same one who gave that first prediction to a small group of townspeople gathered on Gobbler’s Knob in 1887, is still making his predictions each year. A group of men, dressed in suits and black top hats, take care of Phil and organize his public debut on Groundhog Day each year. The Inner Circle, as they call themselves, care for Phil year-round, feeding him a diet of dog food and ice cream in his climate-controlled home at the Punxsutawney Library. It is said he is fed a sip of a special Groundhog Punch every summer, which maintains his immortality.

Then, each Groundhog Day, in the early morning of Feb. 2, Punxsy Phil is roused from his slumber and placed in a heated burrow beneath a simulated tree stump on a stage atop Gobbler’s Knob. At exactly 7:25 a.m. he is brought out to make his prediction. During the elaborate ceremony Phil speaks to the club president in “Groundhogese,” which is only understood by the Inner Circle. His prediction is then translated to the entire world by the president.

The Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawney, Pa., has grown to be a three-day event that attracts thousands, swelling the town from its usual 6,700 inhabitants to more than 35,000. Thousands brave the freezing temperatures to climb atop the knoll outside of town just to see Punxsy Phil make his prediction.

Inner Circle members dispute claims that other communities in either the United States or Canada have weather-reporting groundhogs of their own. Whether it’s Staten Island Chuck from New York City; General Beauregard Lee, Ph.D from Atlanta; Sir Walter Wally of Raleigh, N.C.; Pardon Me Pete of Tampa, Fla., or even Shubenacadie Sam from Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia – they call them all imposters.

Despite these protests, other towns honor their favorite groundhogs with ceremonies and celebrations of their own. In fact, the celebration in Wiarton, Ont., and plans for Wiarton Willie, was named the “World’s Greatest Event” in 2000, for being “the coolest, wackiest, most fun and colorful event on the whole planet.”

It looks like folks in these towns have found a way to dispel the winter blues themselves. Whether the groundhogs give the right answer or not, they get out and have a little fun, which raises their spirits whether six more weeks of winter is predicted or not. That reminds me, our furry little friends will be popping up soon. We ought to catch one and lighten up our winter with a little Groundhog Day ceremony of our own. What do you say, to Athol Annie or Rocky from Rathdrum? Let’s have some fun. Post Falls … Plato, Ptolemy, Pete?