Apparently today, on this most unremarkable of all alleged holidays, Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil and his cousins Woody Woodchuck, Wilbert WhistlePig, and Larry B. LandBeaver emerged from their underground bunkers to a cloudy sky, saw no Shadow
and therefore concluded that Sprng would appear early this year. We shall see.
This animal, Marmota monax, as you no doubt recall, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the family of large ground squirrels known as Marmots. These varmints are Marmots. Young Groundhogs may be called "Chucklings." Here's a Groundhog Chuckling now:
In the Olden Days, when a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, Germans looked for the Badger coming out of hibernation on Candlemas Day, halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. If the Badger saw its shadow, a "second winter" was on the way!
In 1887, twenty-two years after the Civil War, when Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was showing off for Queen Victoria in England and then touring Europe, and Nikola Tesla began experimenting with X-Rays, an undeservedly uncelebrated group here in the U.S. of A. decided that Our Pal the Groundhog should become the National Prognosticator. The Whistling Woodchuck was 'Merican, you see.
Of course, the real reason our buddy was roused from hibernation was arousal. He was looking for Romance.
During the ten years of my tenure at "Discipline & Desire," weekly cartoon ideas on a limited topic were sometimes hard to come by, and therefore holidays and even psuedo-holidays provided fodder. Like Fodder's Day.
I did this rejected cartoon. It was rejected not because it wasn't very good, and it certainly isn't, but because Ground Hog Day was over, although that's kinda the point.
So later on, I did a better version. You may have seen it before, but Holiday Reruns are a Thing.
So if you've had a bad, cold and nasty couple of weeks, take heart! There is hope! Warmth of all kinds is on the way!!
