???Early Monday morning, the infamous Punxsutawney Phil will wake up to a surprising whiff of cold air and thousands of on-lookers patiently waiting for his annual weather forecast. The fuzzy meteorologist will stand up, rub his eyes and prepare to celebrate Groundhog Day, a holiday that has been an institution in Pennsylvania and around the world since the 1800s.
???Legend has it that if Phil, the groundhog, sees his shadow on the morning of Feb. 2 there will be six more weeks of winter. If the so-called "seer of seers" doesn't see his shadow, then there will be an early spring, something most Punxsutawney followers hope for.
???According to the official holiday Web site, www.groundhog.org, meteorologists are correct only 70 percent of the time, but Phil, the only true weather forecasting groundhog in the world, is always right.
???Groundhogs normally have life spans of six to eight years, but there has only been one Punxsutawney Phil making predictions for over 120 years. Each and every year at the Groundhog Picnic, Phil takes a sip of a secret "elixir of life" and is granted seven more years of life.
???If the hairy little whistle pig doesn't already have enough magic surrounding him, legend has it that he can even speak; However, there is only one person with the trained ear necessary to hear Phil's predictions, according to the Web site.
Upon leaving his burrow, the groundhog tells his forecast in "Groundhogese," a language only understood by the current president of the Inner Circle, which is then translated for the world.
???Punxsutawney Phil's simulated tree stump in Gobbler's Knob may seem humble stage, but there is no hiding that this groundhog has reached super stardom. Phil has visited President Reagan in Washington, D.C., appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show, predicted the forecast on the JumboTron at Times Square and even had the 1993 movie Groundhog Day dedicated to his holiday, according to the Web site.
???While Phil has had quite an illustrious career, the history surrounding the holiday runs deep throughout American history. The tradition can be traced back to German settlers in the New World celebrating Candlemas Day.
???According to Groundhog Day: 1886 to 1992, authored by Bill Anderson, the Germans "concluded that if the sun made an appearance on Candlemas Day, an animal, the hedgehog, would cast a shadow, thus predicting six more weeks of bad weather, which they interpolated as the length of the 'Second Winter.' "
???In America, the settlers found the groundhog to resemble the European hedgehog and so focused the Feb. 2 holiday around the animal. Since then, the holiday and its leading fur ball have made many impressionable moments in the nation's history.
???According to the Web site, during prohibition Phil threatened the community with 60 more weeks of winter if he wasn't allowed to drink, and in 1958 Phil announced that the "United States Chucknik" was the first man-made satellite to orbit earth, not the Soviet Sputnik. Later, in 1981, Phil wore a yellow ribbon in honor of the American hostages in Iran.
???Considering Phil has his own holiday and must contend with the pressures of being in the public eye and making a highly important weather forecast, it's no wonder that at the close of Feb. 2 he's as tired as the president on Inauguration Day.
???When Phil isn't busy looking for his shadow, celebrating Groundhog Day or hanging out with his Inner Circle, he lives in the Punxsutawney library with his wife Phyllis. On Feb. 3 the "prognosticator of prognosticators" will be resting, catching up on some much needed sleep and dreaming about his next stint of hibernation.
???According to the Web site, the groundhog is one of the few animals that really hibernate during the winter. Hibernation is not a deep sleep, but actually a deep coma in which normal body functions such as breathing, blood flow and heartbeat nearly come to a halt for a period of days, weeks or months, depending on species.
???Only having to do one performance per year, followed by a long nap? Sounds like someone is living the life of Riley down in Punxsutawney.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
