“Mary’s Corner” in the Hanover Post

Mary has a weekly column in the Hanover Post and she shared with me her column that will be read in today’s edition. This “Wiarton Willie” fever is a wonderful thing! Read on …………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Growing up as a farm kid, I seldom heard anything positive about the short-earred, short-tailed and short-legged brownish-haired rodents known as groundhogs. In fact, mere mention of the critters would often stir up anger and cursing in my father and brothers about the damage their homes – holes in the hayfield – were doing to their farm equipment.
Although they themselves weren’t hunters, many of their friends were and those guys would spend hours wandering through my parents’ farm fields hunting down groundhogs. In fact, such a simple Saturday morning ritual as a teenager is probably what triggered my husband’s passion for hunting into its current obsession.

Being surrounded with such an attitude for groundhogs in my formative years, it has always been difficult for me to comprehend the hype and fuss surrounding the whacky mid-winter tradition in Wiarton of getting up out of a warm bed, before daylight, to stand in the cold to see what some groundhog is predicting the weather will be like for the rest of the winter.

I’m about to find out.

Since September, the Sullivan-Williamsford Lutheran Parish, of which I am a member, has been home to Kristin Soveran, a wonderful lady from Regina, Saskatchewan who is in Ontario on a nine-month internship placement. While here, she’s being exposed to all aspects of ministry in a rural parish, and all aspects of rural life as well. What a delight it has been for us to get to know her! And I just know she’d say it’s been a delight for her to get to know us too!

So what’s that got to do with groundhogs, you ask? Kristin has a daughter, Emily, who will be 21 years of age … on February 2nd, Groundhog Day.

There is simply no way Kristin, in Ontario for the first time, can live this close to the home of Wiarton Willie and not participate in the festivities this weekend, now is there?

So, being a true friend – only a true friend would wake from a comfortable morning slumber to stand out in the cold with her friend to see some white groundhog’s prognastication of the weather! – I’ve agreed to join her and the thousands of others in Wiarton for tomorrow’s Groundhog Day festivities.

I hope it’s worth it.

How many of us, who have lived in Grey-Bruce all of our lives, have ever been to Wiarton for Groundhog Day fun? or to Port Elgin for Pumpkinfest? or to Meaford for their Scarecrow Festival? Tourists from all over the world flock to our area by the thousands every year and yet we who live in the most beautiful, idyllic part of the world often just take the area’s scenic beauty for granted. How many of us consider supporting these community events, if for nothing else than to appreciate the hard work of the organizers?

I’m excited about going to this year’s Groundhog Festival . . . although my current enthusiasm for the adventure may decrease substantially when the alarm goes off early Saturday morning!

I’ve heard lots about Willie’s Shadow Cabinet and the “groundhogese” that is spoken that day.

I’ve heard there are almost always contradictions between the American’s Punxsutawney Phil’s predictions and good old Willie’s.

I’ve been told there’s more silliness happens before noon in Wiarton on Groundhog Day than in most communities in a whole year.

I’ve been told you have to see what happens in Wiarton on Groundhog Day to believe it.

I guess Kristin and I – along with another new friend and perhaps even my husband, if he can be convinced to join us – not to mention the paparazzi that descends on Wiarton for Willie’s big day – are about to find out.