Following the cues of the groundhog

February 1, 2013

Stephanie Hughes, Producer

Early February can be a drab time of year. Tomorrow, there will be ten hours and sixteen minutes of daylight.  Most of those minutes will be gone by the time many of us leave work at 5 or 5:30.

I think that's why I've become obsessed with these weather predicting groundhogs.  At first, I thought there was only Phil, who lives in Punxsutawney.  But then I learned about Murray, who lives in Cumberland, Maryland, and Staten Island Chuck, who lives in New York City.  During a segment I produced two years ago, I learned the tradition goes back to the pagan holidays of the Celtic calendar–and it used to be a badger that was the star of the show, not the groundhog.

How many of you are going to watch a groundhog peep out of the ground this weekend?  And how many of you are just going to hunker down with hot chocolate and watch Groundhog Day, and perhaps listen to songs about groundhogs?