GUEST COLUMNIST OPINION – All eyes in Utah are looking forward to an event that takes place in the east next Sunday. Every year this event is a veritable media circus, and as far away as St. George, people will be hosting parties to celebrate the event. Yes, the food and beverages will be flowing! I am of course referring to Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania.
A groundhog by the name of Punxsutawney Phil has been forecasting the weather in the city bearing his name on Feb. 2 since 1887. Personally, I suspect “fowl-play,” or I guess I mean “rodent play,” since typical groundhogs have a life span of only four or five years.
If you ever get the chance to visit, you should know that the members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club’s “Inner Circle” are recognizable by their top hats and tuxedos. Ironically, the letters in the name “Punxsutawney” can be rearranged to spell “a sown puny tux”… infer what you’d like from this.
According to Groundhog Day organizers, Phil’s prognostications are accurate 75 to 90 percent of the time. And if you like your groundhog’s forecast, you can keep your groundhog’s forecast. But, let it be known that, according to the Storm Fax Almanac, Phil’s forecasts are accurate barely 39 percent of the time, very much like the major networks.
Phil is such a big draw for Punxsutawney that the town’s population has swelled to over 6,000 in just a little over 225 years. Personally, I think that is a very respectable growth rate for a town whose name means something akin to “Mosquito Haven” in the local Native American tongue.
If you are going to Punxsutawney for the BIG Groundhog Day event make sure you get there early, because if you show up late, you’ll find that Phil doesn’t actually do his weather forecast from Punxsutawney, but instead from Gobbler’s Knob about 2 miles to the east.
Note to reader: To be fair, Phil lives in Punxsutawney but travels by limo to Gobbler’s Knob every Feb. 2 which is not unlike how people that live in Ivins and Leeds travel to St. George for important events like lunch and colonoscopies.
Punxsutawney was put on the map by a movie with Bill Murray called “Groundhog Day.” The movie production company was so enamored by the small town that they filmed about 100 percent of the movie in Woodstock, Ill., just a few hundred miles away.
But, this column isn’t about Groundhog Day. There is another event that takes place just to the east of Gobbler’s Knob that struggles to gain recognition … especially when it is competing with Groundhog Day. This event is known as the World Championship of Football.
Note to reader: I would call it the Super Bowl but I doubt that St. George News would want me to continue filling in for my daughter Elise if they were to be sued by the NFL for trademark infringement.
Football is a game that we Americans truly dominate as no team from a foreign country has ever even made it to the World Championship of Football.
The game was historically played in January until network bigwigs realized that February is television sweeps month and the networks could make much more money playing the game in early February.
The World Championship of Football was originally called just that. It wasn’t until 1966 that Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, coined the term “Super Bowl.” Lamar claims that use of the name “Super” was inspired by his kids playing with a “Super Ball.” Fortunately for the NFL, Lamar’s children weren’t eating Twinkies at the time or the World Championship of Football would now be known as the “Twinkie Bowl.”
If you happen to drive to Punxsutawney for Groundhog Day you might want to drive a few more miles east for the Twinkie Bowl – I mean, Super Bowl. Be advised if you do that you’ll probably miss all the commercials.
Guest columnist: John Carter
John Carter is a guest substitute columnist for his daughter, Elise Haynes. Carter is a well known radio personality who co-hosts the morning show with Marty Lane on 97.7 Big Classic Country (our sympathies to Marty Lane). He is also known to throw on a good ole country-western dance party and is far too easily amused by lousy George Takai impersonations.
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