Groundhog Day: What's Up with That, Anyway?

Groundhog Day. Very influential movie-television shows ranging from Xena to X-Files have adopted its premise for classic episodes-but as a holiday or even celebratory occasion, it's not exactly up there with the big dogs. In fact, Groundhog Day is really not much more popular than Arbor Day amongst the common folk. And yet, every February 2, the twenty-four hour cable news channels and the morning shows on all the major networks provide coverage of the event as if it were...well...actual news. Of course, I guess that covering the appearance of a groundhog as an indicator of future weather events is no more ridiculous than the way CNBC treats the release of the gross domestic product as an indication of the actual state of the economy.

So, what is the deal with Groundhog Day? Why are we annually treated to the pomp and circumstance surrounding a rodent with the unlikely name of Phil? Well, as is so often the case, blame the Germans. A subtitle for a documentary about Groundhog Day might well be titled The Americanization of the Badger. You see, the reason we celebrate Groundhog Day as an arbiter of spring's approach is because the area of Pennsylvania in which Punxsutawney Phil is a contemporary hero is not, alas, overrun with badgers. And it was the badger-which is, let's face it, a much cooler animal than the groundhog can ever hope to be-that was the Jim Cantore of 16^th century German farmers. (Come to think of it, Jim Cantore kind of resembles a badger, doesn't he, baby!) Way back before the Weather Channel was invented, German farmers counted on their badger to make an appearance. Should the day be sunny, the folklore goes that the badger would see his shadow and get so frightened that he would crawl back into his little hibernation area and sleep for another six weeks. If this happened and the badger did crawl back for some more sleep, these German farmers would not plant crops for those six weeks because it meant more winter weather lay in store.