Bing, Again!

I feel like I post about Groundhog Day every year but on looking back at previous early February postings I see that I don't. Maybe I always intent to. Truth be told, I often forget that it's Groundhog Day until my cousin Sarah sends me a text with a quote from the movie. And then I spend a lot of the day thinking about the movie and how I truly believe it is one of the greatest movies of all time. It's philosophical, existential, funny, romantic, there's death and redemption and affirmation and Bill Murray. It's the Citizen Kane of the 90s.  

Also, Ned Ryerson:



Have I ever told you that my first grade teacher, Ms. Boyd, was from Pennsylvania? I'm my mind she was actually from Puxsutawny but I was 6 at the time. I also was convinced that I could somehow join the A-Team. Basically, I had a very vivid imagination and made up a lot of things in my head. Anyway, Ms. Boyd told us all about the groundhog and that she was from the place where he saw his shadow. Naturally, I thought this was some kind of magical land because I idolized Ms. Boyd and if she was from there then it was a place that should be revered. As she was telling us about the groundhog I imagined the scene as follows: the groundhog burrows out of a snow bank in a secluded wood and climbs up onto a log and shakes the snow from his head and then looks down and either sees his shadow or doesn't and then he goes back to his little den. And there is one lone scientist hiding behind a tree whose job it is to record the shadow sighting. And this is the scene I always imagine to this day. There is always a snow bank and a log and a hidden scientist. When the news does its fluff piece on it every year this is the first thing that pops into my head. So whenever I watch the scenes in the movie at Gobbler's Knob a part of me is a little resistant to there being such a spectacle. I mean, there isn't a single hidden scientist.