EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK:

I learned about Groundhog Day in elementary school and remember waking up to watch the news with my parents to see if Punxsutawney Phil would see his shadow. Part folkloric tradition, part urban legend, and part modern-day party, this is the festival I thought I knew the most about before attending. After a four-hour drive into western Pennsylvania, we entered the town of Punxsutawney, passing a handful of groundhog statues, the Groundhog Plaza, and a car wash business with a groundhog logo, before parking at the Punxsutawney Area High School. My wife and I walked into the school for the Annual Groundhog Day Eve Banquet on the evening of February first, and almost immediately I realized there was a lot I didn’t yet understand about this festival.

“Hey there! Happy Groundhog Day Eve!” someone behind us in line said. I turned to see that the greeting had been said to a passerby in a tuxedo and a top hat.

“Happy Groundhog Day Eve to you, too! How’ve you been?”

The two men chatted for a minute or so before the man in a top hat had to step away for his official duties. He was part of the so-called Inner Circle, the group of men—only men—responsible for planning the Groundhog Day festivities every year. One past President explained why the Inner Circle wears top hats and tuxedoes: “Such an important figure as Punxsutawney Phil should be greeted with a sense of reverence and formality.” The Inner Circle also takes care of Phil year-round, along with Phyllis, Phil’s groundhog wife; the two of them live in a manmade burrow in downtown Punxsutawney with a completely glass side so tourists and passersby can see them.

Here’s one of the first things I learned about Phil: he’s immortal. Every summer, Phil takes a sip of the “elixir of life” at the annual Groundhog Picnic, giving him seven more years of life. Happily, this means that Phil has been making weather predictions since at least 1886, and that he never dies; there is only one Phil. Even more luckily, the President of the Inner Circle has a magic cane that gives him the power to understand “Groundhogese,” Phil’s mother tongue. When Phil makes his prediction, the President of the Inner Circle translates it to human English. The Inner Circle maintains that Phil has been correct in one hundred percent of his weather predictions over the years.

My wife and I walked into the cafeteria, where the Banquet was being held. A sign on the wall read “Roll Chucks,” and posters with sayings like “Happy Groundhog Day” and “We <3 Phil” covered the room. A giant, yard-sized blow-up groundhog was in the corner. This was a ticketed event, so we made our way to our assigned table, which was covered with a white tablecloth and a centerpiece comprised of a plastic, black top hat, some fluff meant to represent clouds, sunglasses, and a piece of wood.

We shared our table with three other couples. It was all of our first time in Punxsutawney for Groundhog Day, and everyone was excited. We exchanged stories about what brought us here, and what events we would be attending throughout the weekend. For some people, attending Groundhog Day was on their bucket list; for others, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something completely new. The actual Groundhog Day celebration the following morning was free and open to the public, but everything else was ticketed. Getting tickets to these events was not particularly expensive, but it was hard; tickets were limited and there was extraordinary demand. Tickets to this Banquet, the Lunch with Phil on the day after Groundhog Day, and the formal Groundhog Ball sold out minutes after their release.

“It felt like we scored Taylor Swift tickets or something,” one woman at our table said. Remembering my experience rushing to secure tickets for this weekend, I agreed. When she said she was able to get tickets to the private, heated pavilion for the morning of Groundhog Day itself (the so-called “Hogspitality Suite”), I was jealous; those were the tickets that disappeared while I tried to check out, so we’d be standing in the cold the entire time.

When I shared that I was working on this book, everyone at the table seemed really interested. One man from Ohio asked me if I had heard about Buzzard Day in Hinckley, Ohio. I hadn’t, so he explained that it is a celebration of the return of the buzzards, much like the return of the swallows in San Juan Capistrano. I was struck again by how many animal festivals there are around the country, and how many people find meaning in them year after year. This exact type of exchange happened quite a few times while telling people about this book. After explaining the topic, someone almost always responded with a variation of, oh, have you heard of this festival?

While I hadn’t heard of Buzzard Day, I had traveled to San Juan Capistrano, California for the annual Swallows Day Parade. Every March since the early 1800s, migrating swallows would return to the old Spanish Mission building in San Juan Capistrano to nest in the eaves in early Spring. In the 1950s, the town started an annual parade to mark the miracle of the Swallows’ return. Buzzard Day, also in March, was the same type of event. Both occur in March, and along with lots of other events like these, they mark the beginning of Spring. Looking to the habits of wild animals to recognize the changing of the seasons and make sense of the natural world is an age-old phenomenon, and now, events like these honor that tradition, celebrating the returning animals as a way to mark time and look ahead.