February 2nd approaches, and for those of us in the Town of South Bruce Peninsula, that means everything stops for Groundhog Day. If you've never been to our neck of the woods for mid-winter, it's hard to explain, but here goes...

The basic premise is simple: We get up way before dawn in the sub-zeroes, we dress as warm as possible and head out to the pre-prediction pancake breakfast. There we have clowns, maybe some buskers and a lot of groggy people and kids downing hot-chocolate and coffee, getting pumped for the 8am trip to The Dig to await the arrival of a great albino groundhog who will, through the mayor, give us the skinny on spring.

And that skinny is always the same, and therein is the wonderful magic of Groundhog Day: It's not about spring or predictions or tourism or sponsorships or media or air-time or market share or economic development. The magic of groundhog day is just what it looks like, the community, our community, out in some field, under the most adverse conditions of dark, cold whatever-the-weather midwinter, and we are out there together to celebrate, well, we celebrate each other.

Groundhog Day is for dragging your backside out of bed and heading down to the commons, checking up on your neighbours, having breakfast together, letting the kids mingle with a truly dangerous wild animal (you'll hear them say "watch your fingers, kids, Willie is not a pet!"), and then it's about all the other all-us-together things that will go on around that one small rodent-excuse to be there. There's curling, hockey, church teas, snooker, dances, jam sessions ... these are all things we can do the rest of the year, and we might be doing them anyway but we're often stacking our excuses against them this time of year, out of fear, out of laziness, out of inconvenience.

And along comes Willie to say, "What's more important? Staying warm and safe in your beds, or showing your neighbours that, regardless of the weather, or the time of year, or the time of day, or whether the roads are clear or the windchill is biting or regardless of any excuse, we will be there for no reason at all, just to say 'Hi, howareya' and maybe take in a game or two, shoot the breeze, bitch about the government, have a brew or a cola, shake some hands and smile." That's why Bill Murray must live that day over and over again until he gets it: Thanksgiving is for Family, Christmas is for Charity, New Years is for Hope, Easter is for Faith. Groundhog Day is about Community.

Join us ... where ever you are

You don't have to be in Wiarton or Punxsutawney to be a part of Groundhog Day. You could call up some friends and get them to meet you in a coffee shop, or just gather with who ever is already there, for no other reason than to tune the shop radio and listen in on Prediction Morning, then go bowling or go shopping or just be there, get to know each other, build some community, and leave winter and spring to take it's own course.

And that my friends, is the true reason for this season. Dig?