Blogger saves Groundhog Day

Late Friday night after putting the finishing touches on my Colonial Heights vs Prince George basketball story for the Hopewell News and while readying myself for a long winter’s nap, I heard the unmistakable whine of my emergency services cell phone. I knew it was trouble, because it rang my special ring tone reserved for national emergencies.

You see, unbeknownst to many people, yours truly is often called in when those in charge are at their wits’ ends about some project or issue that is particularly cumbersome, difficult, or just plain ignorant. Let me assure you, no one is better suited to handle ignorance than me. If you don’t believe that, I offer as proof a second opinion from my wife, Jackie, who has known me for nearly 30 years.

“It’s true,” Jackie said. “When it comes to ignorance there’s no one like David.”

See, I told you so.

Anyway, here I am after midnight on a chilly Friday night when the cell goes off with my “We are the Champions” ring tone blasting. Nothing like that old Queen lullaby to let me know this is an important call and that I may be pressed into emergency duties right away. So it looks like there might be no sleep for me tonight.

Quickly, I stifle the ring tone and press the cell phone to my ear.

“Yes?” I say with a tad bit of tribulation in my voice.

“Is this you know who?” a vaguely familiar voice crackles through the speaker.

“That depends,” I state affirmatively.

“Well, this is Bob Roberts up at Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania,” he said.

My mind races to put those two thoughts together. Bob Roberts? Mmmm, I think. Then it dawns on me, Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania is the home of that most prestigious of prestidigitators the one and only Punxsutawney Phil. Quickly my mind spins what could be the problem? Why would Roberts be contacting me at such a late hour with dawn coming and Phil needed to perform his miracle of setting the seasons back two weeks?

“Oh and how might Phil be faring these days?” I ponder aloud.

“Well, that’s just it. Phil is in dire straits and in six hours it’s going to get pretty bad up here on the Knob if we can’t get things back in order.”

“How so?” I say.

“Well, we aren’t certain exactly what is going on, but for some reason we can’t get Phil to come out of his burrow. We are living on burrowed (sic) time ourselves right now, with the dawn getting ready to break and all. If Phil won’t come out, we will be the laughing stock of Pennsylvania,” Roberts declared. “We need your help and we need it yesterday.”

“Well, you know, I’ve been pretty busy myself. Action heroes can’t just sit around loafing the day away and waiting for that next emergency. I mean, it’s not like that hero stuff goes on every day. Most of us have to keep a day job in order to make it to the next calamity,” I explained.

“Well, I know it can be hard, especially in this economy,” he said. “But we really need you to come up here and get us out of this bind we’re in.”

Amazingly, Roberts knew exactly the right things to say to me to evoke my sense of patriotism. Something certainly had to be done. Somehow, some way we had to get Phil out of his burrow. At the time, I had no idea how we might make that happen, but I knew my services were needed and that the country, democrats, republicans, tea partiers, and Trekkies alike were in dire need.

“I’m in,” I said.

“Great, we have a chopper on the way to get you,” he said.

It’s quite a way from Colonial Heights to Punxsutawney PA, in case you didn’t know. Punxsutawney is north east of Pittsburgh. In seconds, the helicopter landed in front of my house like a medevac chopper. In no time at all, I was aboard and we are off on our way north by northeast.

No one talked as the chopper clipped along at a solid pace and we sat in our own thoughts. It seemed like it only took minutes to get to Gobbler’s Knob. We were out the door before the chopper’s skids touched down. We hadn’t much time and the vague hints of dawn were already cresting the mountain ridge to the east.

“Hi Bob,” I said. “What’s the plan for getting Phil out of his digs?”

“We were thinking we might be able to get him out by scaring him,” Bob said.

“Scaring him? Are you sure that’s the right way to go about this?” I asked

“Sure. You should see him scramble when the sun comes up. He’s nearly impossible to hold onto when he sees his shadow. If you saw that you would understand why it might mean six more weeks of winter,” Bob explained.

“Ok, so what should we do? I think some fireworks might work,” I offered.

“Oh, no nothing like that. He might get hurt and we can’t have that,” Bob said. “What we thought was that a really huge ground hog might get the job done instead.”

“Oh, so you want me to go find some gargantuan ground hog?” I said.

“Well, not exactly,” Bob said. “Step into my office.”

Inside Bob’s office I noticed a huge rug on his desk. It looked like a cross between a bear skin and a 1920’s raccoon coat. No one needed to explain anything more to me. Bob wanted me to stand in for Phil, plain and simple. Bob would hold me up and I would look around for my shadow. Great idea, I thought.

“Here put this on,” Bob said.

“But Bob, I can’t do that. It would be a forgery, it would be a lie, it would damage my reputation. It would change the psyche of the American public forever. No sir, I cannot in best conscience stand in for Phil,” I said, declining what I thought he was suggesting.

“Stand in?” Bob said. “We never thought of that at all. We just thought that if you donned that suit and walked up to Phil’s burrow the thought of you climbing in would frighten him and he would dodge out of his escape hatch and we could catch him.”

Anyway, that’s the real story behind Punxsutawney Phil declaring an early spring last Saturday.