American Traditions: Groundhog Day

Punxsutawney Phil was there at the birth of our grandparents and he will be there on the day they bury us

As you would expect, The Libel has a broad, international audience, similar to the Financial Times or The Economist.

Here is a map of who reads The Libel. My senior advisers tell me that the grey countries do not have access to the internet.

Well, I think this is true. That’s a map of “all time” Libel readers. When I switch to “last 90 days,” I’m informed that literally all of my readers hail from the American commonwealth of “Massachusetts.”

To hell with the rest of the country—I’m a Massachusetts guy now. Go Sox! Boo Yankees! I love taxes!

So, it’s unclear. Perhaps Substack’s location tracking is not quite working. Perhaps some cataclysm, like nuclear war, has affected all of the world except for “The Bay State¹.” Perhaps, most horrifying of all, my readership has dropped off.

But I would like to have a broad international audience, and so I want to take this opportunity to appeal to non-American readers and answer some Frequently Asked Questions² about an important American tradition: Groundhog Day.

What is Groundhog Day?

Groundhog Day is an annual holiday in which citizens of Punxsutawney, a town in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, watch a groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil—and here I’m quoting directly from Wikipedia—emerge “from his temporary home on Gobbler's Knob…. if Phil sees his shadow and returns to his hole, he has predicted six more weeks of winter-like weather. If Phil does not see his shadow, he has predicted an ‘early spring.’”

You’re making up “Gobbler’s Knob.”

I am not. Here is a link to the “The Gobbler’s Knob Visitors Center.”

I thought Pennsylvania and Massachusetts were states, but you called them commonwealths. What’s a commonwealth?

A state.

Why do they call it a commonwealth, then?

It is the state equivalent of saying, “Look at me! Look at me!” Like saying you studied abroad in “España.”

Or asking a waiter where the fish was caught?

Exactly.

Got it. So Americans actually believe that this groundhog—

Careful. Not “this groundhog.” Punxsutawney Phil.

Sorry. So Americans actually believe that Punxsutawney Phil can predict the weather?

Don’t be ridiculous. We believe that Punxsutawney Phil controls the weather.

How long has this tradition been going on?

Since 1887.

Wait, so we’re supposed to believe that Punxsutawney Phil has been around since 1887?

There are two schools of thought on this. Some believe that “Punxsutawney Phil” is merely a title, like the Pope, or the Dalai Lama. Others believe that Punxsutawney Phil has always been at Gobbler’s Knob, has indeed, always “been,” and may be a form of life that humans can’t really conceptualize. Among this camp, you of course see further subdivisions between those who believe that Punxsutawney Phil is a form of alien intelligence from a distant galaxy who arrived to our Earth billions of years ago (and may even have brought life to this planet), and those who see him as a cosmic being who is not exactly “alive,” in the way we typically understand it, and thus can never die.

Whoa. How do they think Punxsutawney Phil sees us, then? Are we like ants to him? Worms?

They believe that our civilization is so primitive to Punxsutawney Phil that he doesn’t really even register us. They argue that we should do everything we can to remain out of his notice, and that if we were to gain his attention, it may prove fatal to the human race, and perhaps to all life on Earth.

Interesting. Do they wear funny hats at Groundhog Day?

Of course they do.

Photo by Steve Wrzeszczynski on Unsplash

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Notes:

• Why did I write this? Somebody had to.

• What I’m reading. Jorge Luis Borges’s Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley. My colleague recommended it, as we are thinking about teaching some Borges short stories in the spring. I’m only 100 or so pages in, but it’s phenomenal—I’m having a great time. Many of the stories, despite being written 80-90 years ago, just feel very “modern,” in terms of the narrative style.

1. This nickname of course refers to the verb form of “bay,” meaning to “shout loudly, typically to demand something,” which is the state pastime. If you spend more than a few minutes there, you will hear Massachusetts’s proud citizens baying about something or other.

2. Or, as The Libel calls them, FAQs™.