Editorial of March 28, 2024

March Madness

We are in the last week of March, surprisingly, and even this week is in the freezer. Still. There’s snow all around us, the lake looks uninhabitable, the daffodil shoots are drowning in snow, the once-exposed snowdrops have all but disappeared. March is supposed to anticipate a bit of spring, but as of today that’s not in sight, except for the strong anticipation that comes with a few breaths of fresh upstate air.

Who could possibly be the culprit here? No doubt it’s Punxsutawney Phil. This famous character is a groundhog who lives in Punxsutawney, near Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania. The furry boy has been alive since 1886, when he made his first prognostication; according to legend, he will never die because he is sustained by sipping an “elixir of life” every fall at the Groundhog Picnic, before he shuts down a bit for the winter.

Phil speaks Groundhogese; he loves vegetables; his wife, Phylliss, does not drink the elixir so she has not been around for such a long time. According to most, Phil has only been accurate in his spring forecast about 39 percent of the time; prior to this year he has seen his shadow, which means six more weeks of winter, 107 times, and he has not seen his shadow, predicting an early spring, only 20 times. There were no records for a few years in the late 19th century, and Phil didn’t even appear in 1943, apparently due to storm clouds.

Last month, on February 2nd, Phil was once again brutally awakened from his winter nap by record crowds, in the tens of thousands, chanting “Phil!” “Phil!” so he could arise and be ceremoniously yanked from a stump to forecast the coming, either sooner or later, of spring. Seeing no shadow this year, for only the 21st time, he had no reason to go back to sleep. An early spring, he predicted to the masses, is just around the corner.

So, at last it’s March, just after the vernal equinox—and we await the signs of the beginning of spring. Did Phil really get it wrong again? This month, we know, comes in like a lion, with a fierce roar of frigid cold and long, white teeth of biting winds that can cut through one’s flesh, knock down a bunch of trees, and send us all back to the tired warmth of our indoors, and, we are led to believe, goes out like a lamb, a docile little piece of fuzz that exudes warmth and innocence, surrounding us with flowers and blossoms and warm, sunny, green days.

The term, “in like a lion and out like a lamb,” can be traced back to Thomas Fuller’s first use of it in a 1732 compendium, but it most likely originated as a reference to the positions of two constellations in the night sky of the northern hemisphere: one being Leo—lion—which rises in the east at the beginning of March, and the other Aries—ram, or lamb—which sets in the west at the end of the month. This seems to be a succinct summation of the changing weather that inevitably comes to us each year at this time, whether or not it is rightly predicted by our little rodent, as the seasons undergo their Herculean ordeal of change from winter to spring, emerging at last from a deep chill to a welcome beauty and splendor.

We shall see.