Who Wants To Go To Punxsutawney Tonight? It’s Groundhog Day Eve!

Well, it’s not too late – if we leave within the next few hours, we can get to Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney in plenty of time for all the festivities, fireworks and prognosticating.  Anyone want to go? I’ll drive.  Come on, it’s fun.  It’s FREE!  I’ve done it before.  There’s nothing like driving to the other side of Pennsylvania, bundling up until you can’t put your arms down, parking your car at the local Walmart at 3:00 a.m., getting on a yellow school bus (students at Punxsutawney Area High School — home of the “Chucks” — have no school on Groundhog Day, because the school buses are used to transport thousands of people to and from Gobbler’s Knob)  jam-packed with people you don’t know and winding your way up to the top of Gobbler’s Knob all while chanting “GOBBLER’S KNOB” four thousand times over at the top of your lungs.  Americana, I tell you.  I can’t get enough of it.

So, once you are at the top of Gobbler’s Knob, you make your way through the crowd.  There are two distinct sides on the Knob.  One is for young people who have had some happy juice and are not bothered by the cold, and the other side is for families and other people who are there only for the educational worthiness of weather prognosticating I suppose.  Can you guess which side I was on?

Any way you look at it, the Knob is jammed with people all there hoping to see Phil, the world’s most famous groundhog, and hear his handler tell them that spring is right around the corner.  This is not an event for small children – there are no accommodations to get out of the cold!

The local radio station hosts the festivities on the main stage, near Phil’s “house” throughout the night.  There are weddings!  There are wedding proposals!  They shoot groundhog Beanie Babies out into the crowd (I have one!).  There is a bonfire!  There is singing and hot chocolate and souvenirs!  There are amazing, spine-tingling, patriotic fireworks at 6:30 in the morning.  The fireworks make you realize you are taking part in something special, no matter how silly the whole event may seem.

At 7:25 am, the Inner Circle marches through the crowd and up on to the stage.  In the 1960s, Inner Circle President Sam Light initiated the top hat and tuxedo uniform for the group, noting that such an important figure as Punxsutawney Phil should be greeted with a sense or reverence and formality. They are introduced to the crowd.  

Phil’s handlers open the doors to his home (when he’s not at Gobbler’s Knob, Punxsutawney Phil and 3 other groundhogs — including his wife, Phyllis — live in a heated area of the children’s portion of the Punxsutawney Memorial Library), and pull Phil out and present him to the crowd.  The crowd goes wild!   (And, fyi….Punxsutawney Phil, according to legend, is the original groundhog, as his life is extended another 7 years every summer because he swigs a gulp of his “groundhog nog” (elixir) at an annual picnic at Gobbler’s Knob.   And, just so you know, Groundhog nog’s life-extending powers do not work on humans, according to Inner Circle President Bill Deeley.

The Inner Circle President then listens to Phil.  The President is the only member who can understand “groundhogese”.   According to tradition, if Phil sees his shadow on Groundhog Day (which is always February 2 by the way), we will have six more weeks of winter weather.   If the day is cloudy and Phil’s shadow is nowhere to be found, spring is just around the corner. 

The whole thing is over in a matter of minutes, and then the crowd – by then it is around 30,000 strong, heads down and into the town for a pancake breakfast, and to participate in the activities that are scheduled for the entire weekend – there are wood carvers and ice carvers.  There is a Groundhog Day Ball.  There are souvenirs everywhere. 

Click here to watch a video from last year’s prognostication.

FYI – none of the scenes from the 1993 film Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, were filmed in Punxsutawney, PA. Most of the film was shot in Woodstock, IL.

If you don’t want to go with me, that is fine – you can click here to watch the festivities from the comfort of your home. 

Happy Groundhog Day Eve!