Photo by AP Photo/Brynn Anderson via The Buffalo News
Groundhog Day was over the weekend, an event I haven’t paid much attention to since I was a kid. But an odd detail from a news story — the existence of a groundhog named after a Confederate general — reintroduced me and sent me deeper than ever into the weird and surprisingly lethal world of animal Nostradami.
This whole phenomenon is very American; deep pagan and agricultural traditions were adapted by a newspaper editor, businessmen, and groundhog hunters into a spectacle and pageant. Everyone knows Punxsutawney Phil, the Coca Cola of groundhogs, but even his well-trod history has got some strange darkness: Phil saw his “blackest shadow in history” in 1938, ominously had an “unfortunate meeting with a skunk” in 1937, and apparently got so sick of fame that he blasted off in a “Chucknik” spacecraft in 1958. That’s right: Punxsutawney Phil was involved in the Cold War.
But beyond Phil, there are so, so many other hogs cursed with a vision of the world to come. So many that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration keeps track of the most accurate groundhogs and ranks them by their track record.
As a New Yorker, I’m proud to say that NYC’s own Charles G. Hogg, more casually known as Staten Island Chuck, is the most accurate at 85%. But that skill has come at a high cost — Chuck and his family have been marred by tragedy and scandal. In 2009 Chuck bit Mayor Mike “Billionaire” Bloomberg, and then years later, likely seeking revenge for the biting of his predecessor, Mayor Bill “Butterfingers” de Blasio dropped Chuck’s granddaughter Charlotte. She didn’t survive the fall, dying a week later from “acute internal injuries,” which led to a very weird news cycle full of accusations of cover-ups and foul play that consumed the city’s press corps.
NOAA’s best hog list immediately takes a dark turn, too. At 80%, the second-most accurate hog is Georgia’s General Beauregard Lee, named for the traitor Robert E. Lee — a bizarre choice. The current General Beauregard Lee took over the gig from the previous hog, General Robert E. Lee, who retired after ten years of predicting when he “became too old and too fat.”
I don’t blame the groundhog, who has no understanding of racism, but naming him after one of the Confederacy’s biggest defenders is weird. And if you’re trying to inspire confidence in this hog’s ability to predict the future, maybe don’t name him after a notorious failure who made a series of very incorrect predictions and decisions.
Everything about Beau’s biography is weird. He lives in a “groundhog-sized mansion” called Weathering Heights, which is troublingly referred to as a “plantation” in a few places. This mansion apparently has “an architectural water fountain; a postal box; a granite monument; a monogrammed lawn marker, sundial, doormat and a satellite dish… a broad jump and high diving board which readied him for The Olympics. …also includes a laptop computer for his prodigious correspondence and a Wine Cellar to recover from the labors of His National Holiday.” Wild stuff!
The General also holds two advanced degrees: a doctorate of Weather Prognostication from The University of Georgia and a doctorate in Southern Groundology from Georgia State University. Imagine not getting hired for an assistant professorship and learning later you lost it to a groundhog double doctor.
General Beau isn’t even the only groundhog named after a Confederate: there’s a Stonewall Jackson in New Jersey that a state senator stage manages. I suppose I understand looking at a rodent and thinking “looks like a Confederate,” but don’t drag the poor animals into your weird revanchist cosplay.
The phenomenon has gone international — every Canadian province seems to have their own ground hog. The most literary named is Balzac Billy, but the best named is Fred la Marmotte. A succession of great groundhogs have held this post: “Gros Fred,” “Petit Fred,” and “Fred Senior.” Grimly, the son of Fred Senior was found dead on Groundhog Day 2023. Maybe I’ve been reading too much noir lately, but my suspicion is there’s more to this story than we’re being told. Maybe the pressure got to Fred’s son, or he got involved with some bad groundhogs. Maybe he was paid off to throw the prediction (maybe he was promised a mansion like Beau?) but got cold paws at the last second, and organized groundhog-crime took care of him.
This isn’t the only weird Canadian ground hog death: Ontario’s Wiarton Willie has had a strange string of grisly incidents. The original Willie was discovered dead a few days before February 2nd, and when the organizers couldn’t find a replacement in time, they brought out a stuffed groundhog in a coffin on the 2nd, dressed in a tuxedo with coins on his eyes and holding a carrot.
Wiarton Willie took over the weather prediction job from a trio of groundhogs — the amazingly named Grundoon, Muldoon, and Sand Dune — who used to make the predictions collectively. In 2003 Willie’s son, Willie II, was accused of murdering his cubs (“Wee Willies”) — two were found dead in the burrow that they lived in with Willie II. The human official in charge of all this was accused of covering up a double murder, and was dragged before the town council. Despite public outcry, the mayor let her keep her job.
Bloodshed, familial murder, and a trio delivering prophecies? We’re most of the way to a full rodent Macbeth here.
Frankly, the more I read, the more I think this animals predicting the weather thing is getting way too out of hand. There are so many of them: there’s a Texan armadillo named Bee Cave Bob who calls Punxsutawney Phil a “Hairy Yankee Rat” and also predicts the state’s political leanings for the year; there’s Ohio’s Concord Casimir, “The Polish Prince of Felines” that eats pierogis sloppily or normally to predict the weather; and there’s Grover Pinebush and Sweet Arrow Sue, two taxidermied groundhogs who have been married for over a decade.
I get that this is all intended to be fun and goofy (though stop naming animals after racists, you ghouls) but if we’re going to go too far, let’s really go for it. Why not have your local visionary animal make a guess at something other than spring’s arrival? Maybe North Carolina’s blind squirrel Pisgah Piper can predict if any shipwrecks will be discovered off Cape Hatteras this year. Maybe the person that puts on the Athene the burrowing owl costume can predict if skinny jeans will come back in style. And maybe Big Al, the 93-year old alligator in Texas, can predict whether women will have six more weeks of bodily autonomy or not.
If we’re going to imbue creatures with powers and put stuffed animals in committed relationships, let’s really get creative.
