Ground Hog Day and Super Bowl Too? What's Not to Like

Groundhog Day is Feb. 2.

We won’t know exactly what Puxsutawney Phil will show us until Monday morning, but I lay odds on six more weeks of winter. 

I was in Puxsutawney, Pa. for Ground Hog Day, 1977, covering the big fun of the annual festival for a Pittsburgh NPR station. 

Besides consuming copious amounts of beer, I got to listen to the locals swap all sorts of lore about the over-sized ground squirrels and how they’ve come to represent our hopes for an early spring. 

Seems we owe it all to the very practical Germans who had no interest in butchering livestock so close to the beginning of Lent. Pass around enough beer or schnapps and if someone has a little woodland skill or a bored hound, guys can do the craziest things. 

Drag a sleeping hedgehog from its burrow, grab a club,  and if you work fast--protein problem is solved! The American equivalent to the European hedgehog is Phil, or a member of his family.

This year, we have the convergence of Groundhog Day and the Fortnight of Deflategate—or as some would prefer Super Bowl 49!

We don’t make these things up, so if you haven’t settled on your Super Bowl menu, Woodchuck Stew might be memorable for your guest and a culinary adventure for the cook:

 Either way, as you enjoy the memories of your Super Bowl Feast, look forward to some cold weather, ice, snow or a wintry mix on your way to work, Feb. 2. Here's the outlook for Monday, Feb. 2, from our friends at Accuweather.

Super Bowl prediction? Who lost the game will be one of those difficult trivia questions only Seattle folks and real sports fans will confidently answer within 10 years, and I will be one of the viewers who ate and drank with prudent moderation.

And in case you didn’t get the message, “I’m only here so I don’t get fined.”

Pop Goes the Half Time

At 53, Madonna pranced on stage and with multiple costumes and a medley that included segments of 30 years of hits, she pulled off an adequate and safe performance at Super Bowl XLVI.

She promised no wardrobe malfunctions and without a doubt there were no surprises and no more excitement than you might find in an old Busby Berkley musical.

The Material Girl provided some familiar lip synch moves, but this was not a show that warranted many "oh wows!"

There was little to illustrate why she once was a favorite artist on MTV and why songs titled "Like a Virgin," of "Like a Prayer" once aroused controversy among some and passions among others. The lyrics were the same, but the moves were purely rated "G."


She has not aged like Cher, who is now 65, and put her sexiness side by side with Christina Aguilera just last year. While Cher has toned down her look over the years, what she provides is show biz, that like the late Mae West, is classically her own.

Madonna was not Tina Turner at 69, as this picture, taken three years ago, will indicate. Turner is a diva whose moves, curves and voice have all endured maintaining the essence of great beauty worthy of her past sexiness.

 The globe-trotting material girl did not make any moves she would not want her children or even the pope's children to see. Instead, she moved around the stage, going from a black and gold look reminiscent of 1995's New Orlean's Saints Cheerleaders, and ending up draped in Gothic lame' and taffeta.

The Super Bowl Half Time Show has gone for safe entertainment since Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction during the half time performance at Super Bowl XXXVIII.

To be sure, Madonna at 53, is not Janet Jackson at 45. But half-time show producers apparently chose to go with a name, the promise of tame and a safe show for Super Bowl XLVI.

Madonna danced, moved and smiled through the requisite 15 minute set. While the songs were once hits, the overall performance was simply a staged production that screamed out "Glee."