{"id":420,"date":"2012-02-02T11:24:05","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T16:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=420"},"modified":"2012-02-02T11:24:05","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T16:24:05","slug":"column-coming-to-terms-with-groundhogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=420","title":{"rendered":"Column: Coming to terms with groundhogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or, how this once groundhog-basher has come to terms with the little weather rodent<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, CoatesvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A groundhog. Typically, they're lousy at predicting the weather and selling lottery tickets.<\/p><\/div>\n

People get really touchy when it comes to groundhogs.<\/p>\n

As you may have read, Puxtawney Phil didn\u2019t see his shadow this morning and we\u2019re looking at six more weeks of winter. Fine with me, if Winter is a lot like Tuesday \u2014 so warm and sunny that I put the top down on the car, cruising between appointments.<\/p>\n

Forget that the computer modeling shows that it\u2019s likely that we\u2019re looking at a warmer than usual weather pattern over the next six weeks and to be honest, and Phil\u2019s lame 39% accuracy rating (flipping a coin would be more accurate \u2014 or using the weather rock \u2014 or John Bolaris\u2019 little black book).<\/p>\n

To say I\u2019m not a big groundhog fan, is to minimize my feelings.<\/p>\n

I have a complicated history when it comes to groundhogs, myself.<\/p>\n

Back in another time and place, in my farewell column for a daily newspaper in New Jersey (I didn\u2019t know it would be a farewell when I wrote it, but funny how things work in the publishing business), I suggested that Phil was a \u201cmeteorologically-challenged would-be roadkill\u201d and should be ignored and then in classic Garden-State style, riffed on making fun of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvanians and the like.<\/p>\n

This, of course roused the both the animal rights folks who have no sense of humor (but then if you wore shoes made out of cardboard and plastic, you probably wouldn\u2019t find very much funny, either) and people defending Pennsylvania and old Phil, as if I was going to a launch a plot to assassinate the mangy old rodent. Then and there, I swore never to write another Groundhog’s Day column \u2014 an oath that survived these 18 years (which undoubtedly, many of you wish had continued).<\/p>\n

Of course, fate being fate, within a year of that column begin published, I found myself moving to the Delaware Valley, into the belly of the beast as it were, getting a closer look at the groundhog cult, up close and personal. Worse, this led to exposure to Gus, allegedly the \u201csecond-most famous groundhog in Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gus is more annoying than most of the elected officials in the state (despite his resemblance to Ed Rendell, although Gus does have less back hair and don’t ask how I know this), which is saying something. To be honest, I\u2019d promise to buy a lottery ticket every week for year if in one final commercial we could all virtually win the lottery and see an Acme safe fall from the sky and crush him.<\/p>\n

Moving to southern Chester County has enhanced my relationship with groundhogs, though. For many years, a groundhog lived happily under my back deck, although recent and frequent visits by neighboring cats seem to have prompted him to move elsewhere.<\/p>\n

And so while, I can\u2019t take Phil\u2019s predictions seriously (or that guy in the hat, who seems to ready to taser poor old Phil into behaving), I can say I\u2019ve reached the ability to live in peaceful coexistence with groundhogs.<\/p>\n

Except Gus, of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or, how this once groundhog-basher has come to terms with the little weather rodent By Mike McGann, Editor, CoatesvilleTimes.com People get really touchy when it comes to groundhogs. As you may have read, Puxtawney Phil didn\u2019t see his shadow this morning and we\u2019re looking at six more weeks of winter. Fine with me, if Winter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,112,3],"tags":[113,115,114],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-columns","category-featured","tag-groundhog","tag-rodent","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}