Do you have bets being placed on who’s Groundhog is right. Punxsutawney has the most famous of Groundhog Day celebrations, but there’s groundhog traditions all over the state that are lesser known. The holiday comes from German immigrants, where I understand they previously used badgers rather than groundhogs in the old country. Either due to lack of badgers in these parts, or perhaps realization of the inherent dangers associated with drunken revelers waking a North American badger, immigrants to Pennsylvania decided groundhogs were a reasonable substitute.
6 thoughts on “Only in Pennsylvania”
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I never knew that the groundhog was a substitute for a badger in these celebrations. I guess we should be happy that German immigrants in Michigan didn’t substitute a wolverine for either the groundhog or badger.
trust me, it’s no safer to wake up a European badger while drunkenly revelling. the original Germans would most likely have used groundhogs back in the old country too, except that there are no groundhogs in Europe.
We don’t need no stinking badgers! (someone had to say it)
Since George beat me to the joke I was going to use, I have to fall back on this:
Mushroom! Mushroom!
One of these days I want to remix that video with top hats in place of the badgers, a cunning hat in place of the mushrooms, and Nishka in place of the snake…
I think my coat may be a little brown. Why do you ask?
Ian:
A while back, a friend of mine wanted to do a remix of the video with animated Dan Rathers in place of the badgers.
“Rather, Rather, Rather, Rather….”
The key line being, of couse, “Fake! It’s a fake! Ooooooooo, it’s a fake!”