Curmudgeon casts pall over Groundhog Day
It’s time to return to holiday’s simple roots
Editor’s note: Longtime Green Sheet humor columnist Gerald Kloss was never a big fan of February. In a Jan. 30, 1981, “Slightly Kloss-Eyed” column, he wrote: “Nothing — at least in this grim climate — so ennobles February (any February) as its parting.” But Kloss really set his scornful sights on Groundhog Day, the first holiday of the month. In 1988, he mocked the “fun and excitement” of finding out whether we’ll have another six weeks of winter, which most years would sound like a pretty good deal around here. And, in a Feb. 3, 1989, column, republished here, he called, in tongue-in-cheek fashion, for a return to the holiday’s “simple” roots. (It’s a good bet he wasn’t thrilled about the Bill Murray movie of the same name, either.)
Isn’t it about time we start cutting down on our Groundhog Day festivities?
As we begin to take down this year’s Groundhog Day outdoor decorations and put away the dozens of Groundhog Day cards sent in the mail, we should think seriously about eliminating the meaningless frills that have grown up over the years.
It started out so innocently in the old days! There was merely the ceremony of watching a groundhog rise from his burrow on Groundhog Day and noting if he saw his shadow — a harmless if somewhat inaccurate means of predicting whether or not we would have six more weeks of winter. Newspapers across the land reported this cheerful phenomenon, which was forgotten as soon as it was read.
Then the Merchandisers took over.
Seeing an opening to peddle their wares, they hired professionals to raise Groundhog Day out of the secondary list of holiday occasions (like Arbor Day, Presidents Day, etc.) and make it a big money winner. They succeeded all too well, to judge from the hectic round of activity that now surrounds Groundhog Day — the parades signaling the start of the Groundhog Day shopping season, the arrival of Grover Groundhog at every shopping mall, the Groundhog Day office parties, the decoration of artificial groundhog burrows in every home, the lighting of the White House Groundhog Day tree, the Andy Williams and John Denver Groundhog Day specials on TV … the list goes on and on.
But isn’t it time we returned to the basics, to remind ourselves of what Groundhog Day is really about? It’s not about Groundhog Day lights or Groundhog Day presents, or even kiddies piping tunes like “Gilbert the GreenNosed Groundhog,” pleasant as all this may seem.
Let us return to the basics and observe Groundhog Day as it was meant to be observed — the quiet, simple sighting of the groundhog as he rises to the surface, blinks in the morning sun and retreats to his burrow for another six weeks.
Let us, in short, put the groundhog back into Groundhog Day.