Punxsutawney Phil. Photo courtesy PennLive.com.
By the time Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his stump at sunrise last February 2, I had been standing in the cold on Gobbler’s Knob for nearly four hours, eagerly awaiting this moment. Roughly 18,000 others surrounded me there, and thanks to the newscasts from all the major networks on site, millions more around the world could watch live as the Prognosticator of Prognosticators looked for his shadow. The top-hatted and tuxedo-clad members of his Inner Circle set him on his stump and leaned in for word of his forecast. In the midst of the crowd, I found myself leaning in too, anxious to hear the groundhog’s message.