A real conspiracy: Where was Gus?

Some of America’s leading social scientists, many of its most earnest spiritual messengers, and a lot of its most celebrated down- home, Main Street philosophers all seem to be in agreement. Right now, as a culture, we must resist the impulse to spread conspiracy theories. As usual, I’m here to make matters worse.

Not talking at all about Jeffrey Epstein, whose death in a Manhattan prison over the weekend is being investigated by the Attorney General of the United States, a process in which I have as much confidence as in the notion that a lazy fly ball to a Pirates outfielder can actually be caught.

What I’m talking about is the mysterious disappearance, and then the even more mysterious reappearance almost four years later, of my financial adviser, in whom I had every confidence up until the time of said disappearance — Feb. 22, 2012.

And why wouldn’t I have every confidence in him?

He was a very prominent figure, after all. He was on television all the time. He seemed to know everyone with whom he came into contact. They all greeted him warmly and appreciatively. I’d go as far as to say he was beloved.

Then, just like that, Gus the Groundhog was gone.

How the second- most- famous groundhog in Pennsylvania

could vanish off the snout of the earth was a sad commentary on something, probably this column, right? Thankfully, by the time of his disappearance, we had committed his essential financial strategy to memory, and we pretty much stick to it today: Keep on scratchin’.

Spokeshog for the Pennsylvania Lottery since 2004, Gus long ago taught us to manage our expectations ( lower them drastically) on the possibility of ever needing “wealth management.” “Keep on scratchin’” was his way of saying, “Look, with your luck, you’d better be content just to drop a fiver on a scratch- off now and then rather than trying to hit that Powerball all the time.”

So we only play the Powerball if it gets to $ 100 million. What, $ 90 million? What I am gonna do with that? I’ve got real bills.

But back to the possible conspiracy or conspiracies.

Where did Gus go between Feb. 22, 2012 and Nov. 1, 2015, the date of his reemergence? The Pennsylvania Lottery, in 2012, issued some kind of lame statement explaining that they were discontinuing the smiling marmot to focus on a campaign explaining how the lottery benefits senior citizens, something they’ve been repeating 180 times a day since about 1973.

So what really happened? When Gus came back, he had changed in some vague invasion- of- the- body- snatchers way. Originally an animatronic “being,” Gus 2.0 was a product of CGI animation ( computer generated imagery). Though it was not terribly evident to the public at large, nor, I have to admit, to his financial clients, the difference was plain to that uniquely 21st- century American demo, the people who can get upset about absolutely anything. Some screamed like Dylan had just plugged in.

There were petitions begun and social media pages constructed to “save” the original Gus, at least according to Gus’ Wikipedia page ( and, of course, he has one), but that rightly amounted to nothing.

All it did was obscure the real conspiracy, in this view.

Perhaps you’ll remember that in or around 2008, Gus was regularly seen in the company of a lady friend, known as “Gabby,” then perhaps the third- most- famous groundhog in Pennsylvania. It was in the company of Gabby that Gus would annually turn up in the Poconos to promote some “Diamonds and Pearls” scratch- off series, ostensibly to promote the Poconos as a romantic tourist destination. ( Snort!)

Whatever became of Gabby?

Is this a good time to point out that Gus still isn’t wearing any pants?

He’s got an array of snappy golf shirts — I particularly like the orange one — but never any pants. This is the kind of thing that got Donald Duck banned from Finland. Don’t write to me about that; I understand it’s an urban legend. Reportedly some youth affairs committee thought Mr. Duck was too lowbrow for the impressionable Finnish and banished him, not from the country, but the libraries. True, someone snarked that Double D had a certain “moral depravity,” had “an improper relationship” with one Daisy Duck, and that his uncle’s idea of wealth management included taking baths in tubs filled with money.

So now it’s 2019 and Gus, in the most current lottery commercial, is happily shopping for ice cream cones with a woman named Nicky, and when she says she likes mint he says, “Sweet choice!” Yeah Gus, I see what you did there.

But still no explanation for that five- year hole in his experience — no Gabby, no pants, no investigation, nothing.

Just a telling silence from the Clintons.