It’s groundhog day again thanks to Phil, and a film

This article originally appeared in The Inquirer on Feb. 2, 1997.

There is not a hotel room to be had within 50 miles of this tiny Western Pennsylvania burg named for a gnat.

Yesterday afternoon, its normally sleepy streets were teeming with revelers from Japan to Jacksonville, Scotland to Slippery Rock. Locals were predicting the crowd would swell to 20,000 to 40,000 partygoers by this morning - all to celebrate Groundhog Day and a prognosticating rodent that in 110 years has gotten it right just four times in 10.

"It's a piece of Americana," says Michael Bratman, explaining why a 37-year-old mortgage lender from Elkins Park would drive across the state to Punxsutawney. Bratman ranks Groundhog Day a must-see tradition on a par with the Kentucky Derby, Mardi Gras and the Miss America Pageant.

There was a time not that long ago when Punxsutawney Phil's prediction for winter's end might draw a crowd of a couple of hundred hardy souls, a local TV crew and some wire service reporters.

Then came Groundhog Day, the movie, and suddenly Punxsutawney found itself the midwinter port of call for thousands of sleepy-eyed families, retirees in RVs, and beer-chugging college kids who cavort around bonfires all night, awaiting Phil's arrival.

"The story's just so silly, they couldn't have made it up," says Joachim Scholtz, 35, who saw the movie in his native Germany and road-tripped this year from his home in Dearborn, Mich.

"This is my sick fantasy," explains Steve Holland, who brought six middle-age buddies from Allentown.

Since the 1993 film starring Bill Murray as a television reporter forced to relive Groundhog Day over and over again, attendance at the real event has skyrocketed. Last Feb. 2 saw 18,000 visitors, nearly triple the town's 6,700 population. Locals are both happily amazed and somewhat shell-shocked.

"We've always lived bucolic existences here," says Marge Null, the president of the town historical society. "With all the horns honking, you'd think we're at 42d and Broadway."

Beyond Phil's celebrity, why do they flock?

Perhaps it's the price (free), the souvenirs (kitschy), or the genuine small-town friendliness that oozes from one of the last places on Earth where folks don't lock their car doors.

"The whole thing is just so bizarre, watching a rodent coming out of a hole," reasons Boston computer consultant Scott Rumrill, 24, who drove 10 hours overnight after buddy Matt Magne's band, Beverage, finished a gig at a club called The Rat.

Ah, yes, says Bud Dunkel, the president of the tuxedo-and-top-hat-wearing groundhog club called the Inner Circle: the stupidity factor.

"It's ludicrous," Dunkel admits. "If you can't have fun on Groundhog Day, you can't have fun."

Life in Punxsutawney revolves around Phil. So if you're coming for Groundhog Day, you'd better be a believer.

The groundhog's prowess dates to 1723, when the Delaware Indians settled Punxsutawney as a campsite halfway between the Allegheny and the Susquehanna Rivers. Although they named the site after a pest - "town of sand flies" - the Delawares reveled in the abundance of groundhogs, which the tribe considered honorable ancestors.

When German settlers arrived in the early 1800s, they brought a tradition called Candlemas Day. If the sun came out Feb. 2, halfway between winter and spring, it meant six more weeks of bad weather. In Germany, they watched a badger for the shadow. In Pennsylvania, the male groundhog , just waking from hibernation, was deemed a sensible replacement.

The chosen one in 1886 was thus dubbed "Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of Prognosticators," and his hometown, "the Weather Capital of the World." His debut performance: No shadow, early spring.

The groundhog - a member of the squirrel family, also known as a woodchuck or a "whistle pig" - typically weighs four to 11 pounds, living only four years, says Ted Daeschler, a vertebrate biologist at the Academy of Natural Sciences, in Philadelphia.

Phil, if his keepers are to be believed, is an exception. Thanks to an annual sip of "magic elixir," he has lived for 111 years, through two world wars, 21 presidents and more than 10 wives, all named Phyllis or Philomena. Yet he has produced no heirs. (Don't ask. Touchy subject.)

He weighs a hefty 15 pounds and dines on, among other treats, premium dry dog food and ice cream in a climate-controlled condo at the Punxsutawney Library, says handler Bill Deeley, a local funeral director. Up on Gobbler's Knob, he is placed in a heated burrow underneath a fake tree stump onstage before being pulled out at 7:25 a.m. to make his prediction.

Although a computer-assisted study last year by the San Jose Mercury News found Phil correct only 39 percent of the time, his followers swear by his skills.

Phil has even inspired competitors, from woolly worms to prairie dogs. In Atlanta, there's a groundhog named Beauregard Lee. In Canada, it's some albino hack named Wiarton Willie.

"They're Johnny-come-lately pretenders who don't know a thing about the weather," says Dunkel with a snort. "They're trying to ride Phil's coattails to fame. He's long since brushed them off."

Not that anyone's complaining, but it would have been nice if all this hoopla came honestly. Groundhog Day, you see, was filmed in Woodstock, Ill. The famous Gobbler's Knob, an understated clearing high in the hills overlooking the picturesque hamlet, was shown on the big screen as a town square full of bumbling goofs. Punxy Phil didn't even play himself; the role went to a woodchuck named Scooter.

No matter. Virtually everyone in Punxy likes and credits the movie for giving Groundhog Day a much-needed shot of adrenalin. Scores of dances, and lasagna lunches filled the town's calendar this weekend. All 500 tickets to the long-running Groundhog Day banquet sold out in December.

Despite all that, many lifelong residents say they've never bothered to attend. Some don't even know where Gobbler's Knob is.

At their daily lunch in the historic Pantall Hotel downtown Thursday, Matt Tibbey, 101; Ted Swartz, 91; and Orvis C. Hoffman, 83, reminisced about the old days. Only Hoffman ever went, once, in 1935.

"We're too close to the scene of the action," says the never-tempted Tibbey.

Watching her kids ice-skate on a makeshift rink in Barclay Square, Punxsutawney native Doreen Gotwald says it's "too cold and too early and secretly hopes her children won't ask until they're old enough to make the trek with friends. Elizabeth Bellas kept putting it off, blaming a busy life and growing children. Now that she's 75, I'd probably go up there and break a hip. "

If the locals took Groundhog Day for granted - as do Philadelphians their Liberty Bell, New Yorkers their Statue of Liberty - they don't anymore. The tourism dollars, even just a weekend's worth, are welcome in the town still reeling from the loss of its coal and railroad industries.

Marge Null says the sale of Christmas ornaments and Phil figurines keeps the all-volunteer Punxsutawney Historical Museum running. Frank Esposito stocks 10 copies of Groundhog Day at Punxy Video, ready for any out-of-town renters who need a quick fix.

Beyond that, a debate simmers over how big Punxsutawney should allow - or encourage - Groundhog Day to become.

The commerce center for Jefferson County, the city looks healthy enough. Only one downtown storefront sits empty. Last year, Punxsutawney got its first McDonald's - to compete with the Burger King already there. An industrial park is on the way.

Yet when Punxsutawney landed the world-premiere rights for the movie, residents had to take a bus 20 miles to a theater in Dubois.

"The groundhog hasn't built a factory yet," says Wick Divelbiss, the editor of the local newspaper, The Punxsutawney Spirit. Nancy Puchy at the Chamber of Commerce insists that almost no one makes money off the quick blitz of tourism, with most businesses putting the profits into promotion for next year.

To really make it into the big leagues, the town would have to bow to a corporate sponsor. Already, organizers say they have turned down offers from H.J. Heinz Corp., the condiment maker, and Sega, the video-game giant.

"There's two things not for sale in Punxsutawney," says Bud Murray, 69, of the Inner Circle. "Gobbler's Knob, and me."