PUNXSUTAWNEY PILGRIMAGE

Groundhog Day.

We’ve all heard of it. Laughed at it. Questioned the “science” behind it. But how many of us have bothered to actually GO to Punxsutawney, PA – much less learn how to spell it correctly? In a fit of fever-induced haze, I decided that I’d visit Punxsutawney for the 116th Groundhog Day, Feb. 02, 2002.

In truth, I’d thought about going to “that place where they do the groundhog thing” every year since I moved to Washington, DC., figuring that since the groundhog lives “somewhere in Pennsylvania” and because DC is kinda-sorta close to PA, that it’d be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, this casual disregard of the details – coupled with a frightening inability to read a calendar – had for years hampered my quest to meet the ‘hog. The last 8 years of my life (as far the Groundhog is concerned, anyway), have been a never-ending cycle that goes a little something like: Feb. 3

• 8:30a Frank wakes up.

• 8:31a Frank thinks “Hey – I should go to Groundhog day this year!”

• 8:32a Frank checks calendar, notices Groundhog Day was yesterday.

• 8:33a Frank curses the groundhog, crawls back to bed.

Needless to say, I didn’t want to repeat this cycle for a 9th year. This year I would take advantage of my flexible schedule and actually make it to Groundhog Day. I even managed to start planning the trip in early January. I was set – Punxsutawney, here I come!

As it turns out, not so fast.

Now you’d think that the prospect of taking a cool trip with me, coupled with the opportunity to meet Punxsutawney Phil – a veritable American Icon – would be an irresistible, win-win scenario for just about anyone. Well, you’d think that. Or I would, anyway. Trouble was, I couldn’t seem to rustle up a single friend interested in making this haj to the weather capital of the world. I was stunned, confused, hurt. I was ready to cancel the trip when, about two weeks before the big day, my friend Kevin decided to brave the unknown and join me on this quest.

Hopping on the ‘net, I quickly reserved a rental car for a couple of days. Then a quick stop at Expedia to grab the cheapest hotel room I could find. What’s this? There are no rooms available in Punxsutawney? Come on! It’s not like this is Spring Break or Mardi Gras. It is for Groundhog Day weekend though, I reluctantly have to admit, and I am booking late. Ok, how about within 10 miles of Punxsutawney? 15 miles? Crap. How about 25? I’m forced to deal with the fact that my groundhog plans may be dead in their tracks. No. NO! I WILL SEE THE DAMN GROUNDHOG IF IT KILLS ME. I’m determined. We’ll just drive to Punxsutawney and grab a hotel within about 50 miles, crash for a few hours and then head into town for the ceremony. How bad can it be?

I finish packing and run downstairs and throw together a little Emergency Groundhog Day Survival Document. Pick up the rental car, then swing into DC to pick Kevin up from his job, where, as best I can tell, he’s responsible for preparing either the U.S. Federal Budget or the t-shirts that promote the U.S. Federal Budget. Maybe it’s both? Go U.S.A! (And thanks, Kevin, for that great t-shirt!)

We get out of DC without too much trouble, and quickly find ourselves at a Cracker Barrel in Hagerstown, MD. If you’ve ever been to one of these places, you know why they’re simultaneously cool (pretty decent, cheap food) and frightening (the staff, mostly, not to mention the regulars). Of course, at 80 miles from DC, I feel pretty safe in knowing that no one will find out that I still hang with my fraternity brothers at Cracker Barrel. Once again, Frank speaks too soon. Up walks Krystal, her husband Michael, and her parents. Damn. Not only am I spotted with a fraternity brother at The Barrel, but I’m forced to admit that, yes, I am in fact on my way to Groundhog Day. They hide their disgust well, though, so I’m only mildly ashamed. We finish and continue on the journey.

We hit Breezewood, PA (home of the world’s best Taco Bell) and stop for some drinks and a few other items. Back in the car, Kevin is kind enough to pose for a quick shot with the Emergency Groundhog Day Survival Manual.

We pull out of Breezewood and hop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, trying to make good time to Punxsutawney. Kevin, the trip’s official navigator, keeps falling asleep. Not a good sign. Fortunately, he manages to wake up just in time to catch (most of) the major turns. An added bonus? We didn’t have to pay a toll for the short amount of time we were on the turnpike. Yay, PENNDOT! (That’s the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, folks.)

Kevin’s asleep – again. I’m fighting high winds, a goodly amount of falling snow, unlit and windy back roads, and crazed tailgaters. Kevin comes to every once in a while, just long enough to claim that he doesn’t see any snow and to assert that I’m having some kind of breakdown. Thanks so much Kevin, now please go back to sleep. Of course, we get within about 75 miles from Punxsutawney and I decide to start looking for a hotel. It’s 10:45p, we have to be at Gobbler’s Knob around 3a, and we’d both like to grab a few hours of shut-eye before the “excitement” begins. 70 miles, 60, 45, 20.

Dammit – there are no hotels. Heck, there isn’t much of anything on the way to Punxsutawney. I sense a kink in the plan. Fingers crossed, we keep going. 15, 10, 5. No hotels, so it looks like we’re up the creek without the proverbial paddle. We do manage, however, to pull into Punxsutawney a couple of minutes past midnight. Damn, that was one long drive.

We immediately look for a sign to tell us where to go. Nothing. Nada. Zip. We quickly grab a parking space on the main drag and force ourselves out of the car. It’s cold. Very cold. Definitely not like the 74 degrees it had been earlier in the day back in DC. Wrapped in scarves, gloves, and with a couple of layers of clothing, we head off down the street. We pass roving gangs of teenagers and college kids, all of them hooting, hollering, generally slacking. Almost like a sad, sad version of spring break – or what spring break would be like without booze or bikinis – AND if it were forced to be held in a small, frozen, blue-collar, landlocked town in western Pennsylvania. Brrrrrr!

We quickly get the lay of the land. There’s not much open. Looks like only the local establishments that are doing a brisk midnight business are Subway and McDonalds, both packed with kids trying to stay warm. There are a couple of booths set up, mainly to sell tickets for the shuttle bus up to Gobbler’s Knob and, thank god, one with coffee and cocoa.

We wander up and down the main drag, and begin to take in the reality of Punxsutawney.

Now, I’d been joking about the place, that it’s all about the Groundhog, but even I didn’t take myself all that seriously. That is, not until we noticed all the groundhog statues that seemed to be in front of every building. Or how the name of the local strip mall pays a twisted homage to the groundhog, and so on. Definitely scary. We manage to get the low-down on the event – gates open at 3a – and we figure out how to get to the Knob. Now it’s time for a little nap. We move the car to a side street and crank the seats back, hoping to grab a couple of hours rest beneath the loving glow of the NAPA sign and desperately hoping that our cell phone alarm clocks manage to wake us up.

Kevin manages to grab a few hours sleep, but between the random people out causing trouble and the cops that keep coming by, I don’t manage to get any. It also begins to get VERY FREAKIN’ COLD in the car. After what seems like nearly 2 hours, I check my clock – son of a…it’s only been 28 minutes! I swear, I thought I was going to die. Finally, thankfully, we made it to 3a and decide to walk up to Gobbler’s Knob instead of taking the shuttle bus.

What the folks who gave us directions failed to mention was that it’s like 2 miles up a very steep hill and through a couple of frozen fields to get to Gobbler’s Knob. Now, I can handle 2 miles. I can handle uphill. I can handle fields. But together, plus this being at 3a and in 19-degree weather with flurries, it really sucked. The best part, though, was seeing that A) folks in Punxsutawney keep their Christmas decorations up until Groundhog Day, and B) that they have special groundhog decorations.

We finally got up to the Knob, though, and quickly threw ourselves whole-hog (pun most definitely intended) into the meteorological orgy that is Groundhog Day. Our first stop? Pictures in front of the official sign and then with the big wooden groundhog statue.

By now, it’s about 3:15a, and we’ve got 4 hours and 10 minutes until they pull the rat out of the hole. In a desperate attempt to kill some time in 19-degree flurries, we quickly jumped into the really long line for the concession stand. We bought some coffee and chili, then huddled inside the concession building as long as humanly possible, milking it for warmth. We finally had to leave, though, and wandered down to see what was happening on the main stage.

I have to hand it to Kevin. He managed to squeeze his way almost to the very front of the crowd. There were about a thousand people, give or take, when we got there. By the time he was done scooting through the crowd, we were probably about 100 feet back from the stage, with a pretty damn good view of the entertainment and Phil’s Stump (The guy in the top hat is Ben…more on him later).

The entertainment was, at best, mixed. The bulk of it was some guy playing pop, oldies, and dance tunes over the sound system, trying to keep everyone moving just enough to ensure that no one lost a toe to frostbite. We also got to watch random groups of tourists get up on stage and dance. And oh! Who can forget the really bad Elvis impersonator? I mean, why is it that the only Elvis impersonator that you can get to show up at Groundhog Day SUCKS as an Elvis impersonator AND looks like the Elvis they used on the Fat Elvis Postage Stamp? You’d think that with all the Elvis impersonators in the US (hell, even in PA alone) that they could’ve done better. Oh, well. They also had Amber(?) from one of the Survivor TV shows (“Hello? B-Actor Booking Service?”), but she didn’t actually DO much of anything.

The entertainment wasn’t particularly interactive, except for Ben. We could talk to Ben, though. Well, not talk, exactly. More like ask him the ONLY TWO QUESTIONS you care about when you’re standing around in a field at 3:26a in 19 degree weather with occasional flurries, waiting for 7:25a to roll around so that you can see a groundhog: “Hey Ben, WHAT TIME IS IT?” and “Hey Ben, HOW COLD IS IT?” were shouted out about every two and a half minutes, with frozen, confused members of the crowd praying for death when you’d hear “19 degrees, and still three and a half hours to go!”

Finally, mercifully, we moved onto actual, planned events. There was a nice little Sept. 11 thing – fireworks, a nice speech, guys dressed up like Uncle Sam. The exceedingly cute (but semi-tone deaf) daughter of the head of the Groundhog Club sang the National Anthem. The fireworks were actually very good, and I’d honestly have to say that they were as good (or better) than what I see in DC each 4th of July. Of course, that may have been because the fireworks seemed to be going off about 50 feet over our heads, which I can’t imagine was all that safe.

Then came the magical 02-02-02 fireworks sign – the same one that had been hanging from the end of a crane all night (morning?) and blowing wildly and dangerously around in the wind, untethered as it was.

That fun quickly died down, however. It was time for the main event! I took a quick shot of at least a part of the crowd, which was just a tiny slice of the more than 39,000 (yep, thirty-nine thousand) people there that morning. Biggest Groundhog Day ever! (Woohoo?) One last item before we get to the hog. It wouldn’t be Groundhog Day without the Pennsylvania Polka! Here’s the version of the Pennsylvania Polka from the movie Groundhog Day, as well as a couple of others that I found on Morpheus (RIP!), one by the Andrews Sisters and one from (holy crap!) Lawrence Welk. Also, for the kids, here’s the midi version.

Then the Inner Circle guys come out (no, not *those* Inner Circle guys) and read their scroll:

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! On Gobbler’s Knob this momentous Groundhog Day, 02-02-02, Punxsutawney Phil, King of the groundhogs, Seer of Seers, Pontiff of all the tribes of Marmota monax has eagerly responded to Groundhog Club President Bill Cooper’s summons. He was greeted by his friend and handler Bill Deeley who held him high so he could greet the huge crowd of Faithful Followers. Bill placed Phil atop his Regal stump. He glanced around then seriously spoke to president Bill in Groundhogese directing him to select the appropriate scroll which reads: Thank God I live in the land of the free and brave and I live in a burrow and not in a cave. I bin sleepin’, bin noddin’, bin living’ better than Bin Laden. I only come out to eat and have fun My Groundhog Day job is to study the sun. The sky is light, the signal is strong, My shadow I see, So winter will be Six more weeks long.

That’s right, woochuck chuckers. They pull Phil out of the stump, the rat saw his shadow, and we’re stuck with six more weeks of winter. Damn.

Since the show was over, we raced out of there, headed back for town. I took a quick shot of the groundhog footprints painted on the roads that help you find your way to Gobbler’s Knob. Breakfast was sourced from the Fraternal Order of Eagles Hall – big buffet action, then we hit the town square to check out the ice-carving and other little festivities.

Kevin and I decided to wrap up our day – it’s only about 10a now, but we’d both been up nearly 30 hours straight at this point and still had to drive back to DC. But first, a quick stop at the community center for some souvenir shopping and then over to the woodwork sale and international food festival.

The souvenir shopping was pretty cool. I picked up some magnets for the fridge, managed to keep myself from buying a groundhog hat (I mean, do I really need a groundhog hat? People would laugh at me, and more than usual.) Then it happened.

We popped into the international food festival fully expecting to find Safeway-style hummus or fast-food sushi – something arguably international, but slightly dumbed-down given our locale. Weren’t we surprised to find that far-off countries like Italy and China had contributed some wildly exotic fare, including such rare and coveted foods as pizza and steamed dumplings, respectively. It got worse, with vaguely-identified countries offering baked fish and brownies. We weren’t sure whether we were supposed to laugh, cry, or avoid eye contact as we backed slowly toward the door.

Wrapping up our Groundhog Day extravaganza, we stopped in front of a huge groundhog billboard (statue?) (monument?) for a few pictures.