Candy hearts. Boxes of chocolates. Hearts with arrows through them. Roses. Paper hearts crayon-colored bright red. Cupid. Greeting cards covered with sparkly hearts. Dinners out at fancy restaurants. Ballooning hearts .. er, wait -- heart-shaped balloons. Diamonds. Cookies shaped like giant hearts. Sending the kids off to stay with their grandparents for a few hours. Cloud hearts drawn by sky writing planes.
The topic of discussion is, of course, the only entirely made-up holiday on the Julian calendar: Groundhog Day.
That's right, February 2nd, the day when Punxsutawney Phil -- an aged groundhog who, to me, always looks slightly surprised that anyone is paying attention to him -- is dragged out of his comfy groundhog condominium in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania (home of the Hotel Punxsutawney, Fox's Pizza Den -- said fox presumably waiting for his chance at ol' Phil -- and a McDonald's), and held up in the air by the mayor or some other fashionable dignitary in tails and a top hat to find out if he'll see his shadow or not (the groundhog, not the mayor). Or maybe to check and see if he's really a 'he' (the mayor, not the groundhog). I've never been entirely clear on that point.
According to Groundhog Day mythology, if a groundhog -- anywhere in the world -- sees his shadow on February 2nd, there will be six more weeks of winter weather. That's two hundred years in Groundhog Years, which is why nearly all groundhogs look like they're a little near-sighted: they want to be able to hit the beach on February 3rd, so they do their durndest not to see anything at all the day before.
Wait.
Oh, you thought that since there was all that business up in the first paragraph about hearts and cookies and diamonds and all those other symbols of love that I was going to be writing about Valentine's Day, right? Maybe about how it is the only holiday completely invented by greeting card companies to keep them and candy-heart manufacturers in business (greeting card companies also invented the common cold so that there'd be a reason to make Get Well cards. And before that they invented the backseats of cars so there'd be a reason for Birthday cards).
Well, I was. But then I discovered that Valentine's Day actually comes out of the ancient Roman feast of "Lupercalis," which means, if I remember my grammar school Latin, "Day of the Roast Chicken," or possibly, "Wacky Holiday Where a Short Fellow Carrying a Bow and Arrow Runs Around Chasing People and Laughing Maniacally." Later, the holiday became associated with two 3rd Century Roman martyrs whose names were both St. Valentine (a coincidence that no one seems to be at all suspicious of), both tragically slain by the short fellow with the arrows. Hopefully justice prevailed and he was put in jail.
Later still, Al Capone decided to "take out" six of "Bugs" Moran's gangsters on Valentine's Day, 1929. After that, it became customary to "take out" your sweetheart on that day in order to celebrate your love for one another. That's my understanding.
V-Day might have something to do with the holiday, as well -- not sure.
Anyway, once I found out that Valentine's Day had all of this rich and intellectually compelling history behind it, I decided that it would be in bad taste to call it an overly commercial holiday designed solely to get us to buy overpriced gifts and cards for one another in order to prove something that we should already know. That and because somebody on CNN already beat me to it.
So go on, get out there, buy a pair of sunglasses for a groundhog you know and a diamond tie pin for a Chicago mobster. Make someone a little bit happier this Groundhog Day/Short Fellow with a Bow holiday season. See you on the beach.
No groundhogs were harmed in the writing of this column. Well, just the one, but he sued, so it's okay. You may contribute to the author's legal defense fund by sending him money care of this column.