First, if it is a sunny day, little Punxsutawney Phil is bound to see his shadow, get scared, and scurry back into his burrow. The crazed American schoolchildren, retirees, and reporters standing nearby will let out a sad little sigh, for the all-seeing rodent has spoken: there will be six more weeks of winter. But never fear, berserk bystanders! Take a look around. If it is sunny in February, there is a good chance the weather is not as woebegone as the woodchuck may have it seem.
Does this remind anyone else of The Lion King when Rafiki holds up Simba, the future king? Is this rodent OUR future king?
Secondly, if it is cloudy, the groundhog is not going to see his shadow, predicting an early end to winter. Let's use a little common sense. We have fancy meteorology equipment that can predict weather; why must we stoop to some colloquial superstition to guesstimate the arrival of spring? It's like we're cavemen.
We're even making rock art of the creatures.
Lastly, for Utah, this tradition is basically pointless. It's Utah. We're going to have at least six more weeks of winter regardless of any whistle pig's shadow. Last year it snowed three inches on May 1st, a solid 12 weeks after the little groundhog emerged from his burrow. And if I remember correctly, he didn't even see his shadow last year. But no one remembered that in May.
It's a good thing that America has the memory of a goldfish, or else that woodchuck would be out of a job. But maybe we should fire him and get him a lumberjack job. Then we could finally find out how much wood a woodchuck can chuck.
If you can predict the weather, you can chuck wood, despite your lack of opposable digits.
Groundhog Day started in America among the Pennsylvania German communities in the 18th and 19th centuries as a traditional celebration to predict the beginning of spring. So it didnt actually begin in the united states. Through cultural diffusion we ended up with what we call ground hogs day and yes you are absolutely correct for a desert area like Utah with lengthy winters it is a pointless tradition but in Germany it is actually a pretty decent prediction either way because their winter season usually ends smack dab in the middle of either the "short winter" or "long winter". - just a few pionts i think you might have wanted to include............... plus im your little brother so i have to be annoying.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the information; I had no idea! That's very fascinating. But really, are we so unoriginal as a country that we can't even come up with our own holidays?
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