In 1978, my United States Marine father was assigned a 13 month tour of duty in Okinawa. Family was not going to accompany him on this detail. So Mom had to find a place to live with her six children until he came back. The logical solution was to move back to Pennsylvania, so we could be close to mom's side of the family. Her relatives mostly lived in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. Letting the housing market and common sense prevail -"live close, but not too close"; we ended up living in Punxsutawney (Jefferson County). Punxsutawney was the epitome of a western Pennsylvania borough. Punxsutawney was settled by that usual western PA settler mix of English and German that came for the land and stayed because of the mines. Lumbering was another big industry, but those laborers (several of my ancestors among them) followed the work and migrated from county to county. Mining, farming and lumbering, the genetic stock was hardy and tough. In 1979, common entertainment in Punxsutawney was getting drunk, fighting and racing your vehicle at breakneck speeds until somebody lost it all against a railroad overpass abutment. My father said that Punxsy reminded him of the '50s. I think he liked that.
The name Punxsutawney derives from the Delaware Indians. Ponksaduteney translates to "town of the sand flies." According to legend an evil Indian sorcerer was defeated in battle there by a hero chief. To eradicate his black magic, the body was consumed by fire. Instead of ashes rising out of the pyre, glowing sand flies arose and drove out the local inhabitants with burning bites. In 1978, the public pool and the outdoor basketball and tennis courts were located along the creek and in the evening we would sit on the dike along Mahoning Creek and swat the swarms of gnats or "ponks" as we called them. It wasn't hard to see how the legend sprang up.
The Indians also left the legend of the grandfather who first inhabited the area. He was the wuchak. According to the creation legends, the first people were created in the form of animals and later became the people of the land. The wuchak was the original father of those who lived there. The wuchak was a groundhog. This legend gave rise to the common usage of the word "woodchuck." In Gaelic folklore, the Cailleach — a divine ancestral being — rules the winter months. Brighde (Brigit) is her counterpart who rules the summer. When the Cailleach wants to extend her rule for a longer time period she makes February 1st (Imbolc) a bright and sunny day so she can gather firewood for the rest of the winter. Gaelic people could rest easy if Imbolc was foul weather day. It meant that the Cailleach had no intention of extending winter and therefore spring would soon be here. Conversely, if the sun is out and you can see your shadow on Imbolc enjoy it, but keep the heavy cloak handy; you're going to need it for six more weeks.
Somehow, Imbolc and Candlemas (the day the infant Jesus was presented as a firstborn and Mary purified herself at the temple 40 days after the birth) got rolled into one. Imbolc is called the Feast of St. Brigit. Yes, that is the same Brighde mentioned above. Brighde is summer and life, Cailleach gets the bad rep as she is winter and death. St. Brigit is the patron saint of midwives. She represents birth, spring, new life, all that nice kind of stuff. Folklore, pagan and Christian, mixed into a celebration of spring and new beginning. Weather prognostication was a big part of that celebration and the people had their own natural almanacs to determine the long-term forecast. Italians watched wolves' hibernation patterns, the Scottish watched for snakes in snow, the French looked for prosperity in flipped crepes, and the Germanic people watched ground squirrels.
How natural then, that the Pennsylvania Dutch who settled the area brought the Imbolc/Candlemas groundhog legend with them when they settled in Ponksaduteney. Of course, they didn't honor the groundhog himself as the great grandfather of Indian lore. The pesky rodent tore up crops, got into supplies, and over reproduced himself. So the people of Punxsutawney hunted him just like any other game animal.
It is said that in the summer of 1887 a group of local hunters and gourmets held a groundhog hunt and picnic and celebrated the event by barbequing their game and washing it down with locally brewed beer. The city editor of the Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper was a man named Clymer Freas. Inspired by the hunt, the fellowship or the beer, he dubbed the picnickers the "Punxsutawney Groundhog Club". He recalled the Pennsylvania Dutch legend of the groundhog as a weather prophet and claimed for the Punxsutawney Groundhog all weather rights. He created a home for him on Gobbler's Knob and a fame that is now worldwide.
(Marc Weimer, History of Punxsutawney, http://users.penn.com/~mweimer/history.html)
William Orlando Smith, congressman and editor of the Spirit, promoted Freas' tongue-in-cheek editorial. An event grew, it was publicized, and it became a local holiday. Smith's successors carried on the tradition – adding top hats and cutaway coats and using flowery language as they proclaimed the forecasts of Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators and Weather Prophet Extraordinary. People came from far and wide to observe the event. The locals attended too. It was an excuse to get drunk, fight and drive really fast.
The famous location of the proclamation is Gobbler's Knob. Known to locals as The Knob, it quaintly sits on a parcel of land close to where Woodland Avenue and Elderberry Hill Road meet. Again, I know this location well. The LDS Chapel where we attended was built on Gobbler's Knob. The whole ceremony of February 2nd took place on the church grounds. The local bishop said that when they were looking for a place to construct the church they were approached by Sam Light, then President of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. Light said that he knew the Mormons were looking for a place to build, he had seen other Mormon structures including some of the temples, and he would be pleased if the Latter-day Saints would consider Gobbler's Knob as a suitable location. Light was sure that the church would do justice to that piece of land, the only caveat being that the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club and the Groundhog Day festivities continue as they always had. This was a win-win for the church; a prime location AND lots of non-members coming to their chapel. The chapel was built, the landscape was cleared and beautified, and for years the people of the world showed up at a Mormon church to see a groundhog continue a pagan practice on a Christian holiday. Who says America isn't the Great Melting-Pot? The morning of February 2nd saw the parking lot fill up fast. Buses shuttled people up from Front Street and the big parking lot at the Buffalo & Pittsburgh railroad yard. Hot chocolate and donuts were served in the church; coffee was served in the parking lot, and people brought coolers of beer or mugs of Irish coffee. The aftermath would be a bunch of tee-totaling Mormons cleaning up beer cans and liquor bottles for hours. But in the early morning light, it was a party. People shifted from foot to foot to stay warm while meeting up with old friends. The inner circle of the Club showed up with pomp and fanfare, speeches were made; a sleepy groundhog was pulled out of a cage in a hollow stump. The President of the Club called the assembly to silence as he let Phil whisper the forecast in his ear. 2010 went like this:
Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye:
On Gobbler's Knob on this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2010, Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators awoke to the call of President Bill Deeley and greeted his handlers, John Griffiths and Ben Hughes.
After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers, Phil proclaimed, "If you want to know next, you must read my text. As the sky shines bright above me, my shadow I see beside me. So six more weeks of winter it will be."
Just like in 1979, the people gathered in that place suspend disbelief as they react to the news. The crowd cheers or moans depending on the forecast of winter yet to come. And then fireworks go off and music plays. There is no use wasting the occasion even if the news isn't what it was hoped to be. Kids get the day off from school. Businesses in town open only after the party is over. The record of winter vs early spring now stands (since 1887) at:Shadow 99
NO Shadow 15
no record 9
The rest of the time Punxsutawney Phil lives in the Public Library with his wife, Phyllis. All the local kids know his exhibit/home well. It is right down in the children's book section and there are certain times when Phil's handler will take him out and let the patrons pet the famous rodent. When we lived in Punxsy, I spent a lot of time at the library. We happened to live there when there were a number of baby groundhogs wandering around the various transparent tunnels that made up the burrow. I have no idea how many Phils there have been over the years, but I can assure anybody that the 1978 version of Punxsutawney Phil loved people. He would come right up to the glass or snuggle under your hand. People meant attention, affection and food; filling all the needs in the hierarchy to make a nice little self-actualized hedgehog.
I lived for 14 months in Punxsutawney. I'm not planning to move back, but it was fun while we lived there. Childhood still had magic and the small-town feel contributed to the angst and excitement typical of coming of age that passes in the early high school years. I can remember the Punxsy streets well as I recall my life stories from those days; even if the movie Groundhog Day was filmed… in Illinois.
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