Saving Punxsutawney Pete

This is neither Phil, nor Pete.

On this Groundhog Day, 2015, we are all quite fed-up with Punxsutawney Phil, the prognosticating groundhog of seasonal change, who makes his home in Gobbler's Knob and who - let's be honest - wouldn't know his shadow if it reached up and bit him.  He supposedly saw his shadow, this morning, which, according to legend, means six more weeks of winter - as opposed to an early spring.  I won't bother you with the boring fact that winter officially ends seven weeks from now anyway, because the whole exercise is supposed to be fun.  I do have a problem, just on principle, with the fact that it could be pouring rain during a total eclipse of the sun, and that furry little f**ker would still "see" his shadow.  Whatever, Phil. There are 17 more days until the REAL turning point.

This is not a story about Punxsutawney Phil.  This is about his predecessor.  For decades before Phil took over in 1952, the prognosticating job belonged to Punxsutawney Pete.  Obviously, since captive groundhogs typically don't live much longer than ten years or so, there were many Petes.  

Only one, as far as we know, was stolen by a hobo.

It happened on February 2nd, 1936.  The Inner Circle had proclaimed that Pete, having seen his shadow, was predicting six more weeks of what had already been an especially cold, icy winter.  But there was a problem.

Late that morning, Nicknameless Norris Shine, the local hobo, was passing through.  He regularly wandered the rails between Youngstown and Scranton, so to the citizens of Punxsutawney, he was "local."  He helped at the freight depot when he could, and made a point of looking after the youngsters in town, and was treated with much more respect than the average feckless rail-rider of his day.  Norris happened upon the gentlemen of the Inner Circle on the bank of Mahoning Creek Lake, near the east end of the train yard.  They were arguing over the best way to kill their famous groundhog, given the fact that the frozen state of the creek had rendered drowning impossible.

After a heated debate, it was decided that Mayor Aldous D'Zmjcka, since his house was closest, would fetch his rifle.  The rest of the Inner Circle accompanied him, leaving only one man, young Heiko "Bud" Niederlenten, to mind the wood-and-wicker clothes hamper that contained poor Pete.

Nicknameless Norris Shine shambled out of the woods.  "Say, Bud," he called, "what's going on?"

Bud knew Norris.  Everyone did.  They liked him, too.  They just never bothered to give him a nickname.  "Huh?  Oh, hey there, Norris. Don't sweat it, fella. Let's just say it's time for a new Pete. This one's... this one's, uh, maybe a little bit rabid, or something. Gotta put him down. You probably ought to move along."

Norris hated being lied to.  "I heard what the Circle was saying, and the one word I didn't hear was 'rabies.'"

"This don't concern you, man," Bud said. "Suppose you just keep walking, okay?"

Norris shook his head. "You know, if I thought that critter had rabies, or was lame or suffering in the slightest, I'd dispatch him for you and feel fine about it.  But if I heard you fellas right - and I know I did - ol' Pete ain't rabid at all. So if you don't mind, I'll just be relieving you of custody of the little guy." He strode purposefully up to Bud and reached for the hamper.

Bud Niederlenten grabbed Norris' arm. "I can't let you do that, friend. This guy saw a shadow, today..."

"So?  That's his job, ain't it?"

"So... It wasn't his shadow. It was the shadow of some kind of bird."

"Say what?"

"This animal cast some other animal's shadow, and it's got the old-timers in the Circle spooked something awful, so this accursed varmint has to be put down."

Norris snorted. "That has to be the dumbest thing I've ever--" he snatched the hamper from Bud, used it to shove the young man halfway across the frozen creek on his ass, and sprinted off into the woods.  He headed east, but kept to the wooded creekside, knowing the men of the Inner Circle would be all over the train tracks.  He didn't stop until after noon, as he approached the village of Big Run.  

The barking - of men as well as hounds - had faded into the distance. He sat on a dead tree by the creek, opened the hamper, and looked inside.  Punxsutawney Pete glared up at him.

"I don't care what kind of shadow you threw this morning, pal. You don't deserve to die, and you shouldn't have to live in a cage and get hauled by the scruff of your neck out of a sound sleep and held up in front of a bunch of hooting drunks, once a year. You are a smart and handsome fellow, and--"

The groundhog sprang up and bit Nicknameless Norris Shine on the thumb, instantly drawing blood.  "Ow!  Goddammit!" the hobo shrieked.

Pete scampered across the frozen surface of the creek, stopped and stood on his hind feet, and glanced over his shoulder at the human who had freed him. He sniffed twice, then turned and raced to the far bank, and disappeared into a thicket of holly and pine.

Despite the cold, burning pain in his thumb and the knowledge that he would now have to find a new stomping ground, Norris felt good about himself, and about what he had done for Pete.

Almost five weeks later, as central Pennsylvania enjoyed an extremely early, warm spring, the kindly hobo with no nickname died of rabies, in a barn on the outskirts of Wilkes-Barre.
  

This bit of drivel was prompted by - guess who - my friends at STUDIO 30-PLUS, who this week gave us FECKLESS.  Hoboes... Groundhogs... feckless...  It practically wrote itself!



 

Never Assume That The Thing Clawing At Your Ceiling Is A Squirrel

Presenting an excerpt from my 2011 Camp NaNoWriMo novel "Sand In The Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid."  Still there?  Okay.  Let's take a peek at chapter five...


Scratching.  At three fifteen, Dun was gradually drawn from sleep by the sound of scratching.  He lifted his head in an attempt to locate the source.  It wasn't either of the windows in this guest room, where they had bedded down in a deliberate attempt to minimize their exposure to the outside world.  It was coming from the ceiling.

"Oh shit."  Dun said, matter-of-factly.

Lucy stirred, and Dun held her closer.  After a few seconds, she could hear it, too.  "Oh shit!" she gasped.  "Is that in the ceiling?"

"There's an attic.  I forgot all about the attic.  I am just not equipped for this horror movie stuff." he muttered.

"Do you think it can get in?  Is there like, one of those drop-down doors with the folding ladders, or an access panel, or what?" she turned on a light and pulled on a t-shirt.

"I don't know.  How strong are squirrels?  They're so small - how strong could they be?" he reasoned. "As far as I know, the only way up there from inside the house is the big door in the ceiling, out in the hallway."

The distinctive sound of tiny claws digging and scratching at hundred-year old wood - or maybe it was on the ceiling's sheetrock - stopped.  Before either of them could say anything, it resumed, only now it was at the other end of the room.  Then it ceased again.  Dunstan, having quickly climbed into his jeans and Hog's Breath Saloon t-shirt, took the broom they had brought upstairs with them and gave the area where the sound had been a gentle poke.  Then, a firmer poke.  There were a couple of odd banging sounds from above him, then some more scratching, now apparently out over the hallway.

They stepped just outside the bedroom, near the top of the stairs and directly beneath the trapdoor to the attic, and they listened.  The noises seemed more frantic and haphazard than they did evil.

"Well, it doesn't seem to be interested in the door," Dun whispered. "We could probably just leave it until morning."

Lucy wrinkled her nose.  Dun thought for a moment that that may well have been the cutest thing he'd seen her do, so far.  

"I don't know," she said.  "Even if it doesn't want in, those little assholes love to chew stuff.  We had a family of them in our attic once, and they cut the phone line - and a few minutes later, one of them got into an electric main line and ZAP!  Blackout for us, fried squirrel mama in the attic, and two little stupid orphan squirrel babies running around.  It was a mess."

"Oh.  Right.  Forgot about the chewing.  Should we just call 911 again and let them deal with it?"  After three days with Lucy, he was already fairly certain of what her answer to that question would be.

She stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.  "It's a squirrel.  I'm pretty sure we can take him."

"You think so?"

"I do.  I mean, look at our size advantage, and these giant brains we have.  Are there any donuts left?" she asked, eyeing the broom Dun was still holding.

"At least one.  Glazed, I think.  We'll need something to trap it in, though - like a trashcan or a box."  he thought aloud.

"I got it!"  Lucy scampered into the bathroom at the end of the hall and emerged a moment later with a large towel.  "Do you have a hammer?"

"A hammer?  What for?"

"You know, like in 'Christmas Vacation?'  I'll throw the towel over it, and you hit it with a hammer."

"Ew!  Wait.  They only said they were going to do that, and somebody's mother fainted and the thing ended up just running out the front door."

"So?"

"So, it's an untested strategy.  What if we--"

"'An untested strategy?'  If they had actually done it in the movie, it still wouldn't really be a test of the strategy, would it?  I mean, it's a movie."  Lucy was having fun with this, which was helping immensely Dun's fight against succumbing to panic.

Eventually, they agreed on the rough outline of a plan.  Lucy would pull down on the cord connected to the attic door and hold up a donut-topped mop handle, while Dun would stand ready with the broom and a can of wasp and hornet spray (Dun had thought he might be able to at least stun or temporarily blind the rodent with some extra-strength Raid).  While he whacked, de-wasped and um, swept the critter into submission, Lucy would throw a laundry basket over it.  They would then scoot the upside-down basket over to the top of the stairs and drop their prisoner into a metal roasting pan, slam the lid on it and throw the whole thing out the front door, possibly after giving it a good shake, to ensure a stunned and disoriented little Bullwinkle sidekick would emerge.

They were well-pleased with their plan.  It was a brilliant plan.  It made them want to high-five and kiss and crack open some champagne.  They even had a contingency plan for failure to get the basket over the squirrel, or for losing him down the steps.  Dun would keep after it, using the broom as a kind of hockey stick, and she would assist with the mop handle and the garden shovel they had retrieved from behind the kitchen.  They would usher the thing out the front door and onto the porch - then out the porch door, if things were going well.  Then, they would have awesome celebratory sex and go back to sleep, assuming that the on-again, off-again sirens could stay off-again long enough to allow the latter.

"Ready" she said.

"Wait," he pointed at her bare feet. "We should have shoes on.  Don't want to get bitten during battle."

"Dun, I have nothing on but this t-shirt and some deodorant... and a little foundation... and maybe a hint of blush... and... You're right - jeans and shoes required!"  She located her jeans while Dun fetched their sneakers from downstairs.

"Okay.  Now are we ready?"  She stepped up to him and looked into his eyes.  "Listen, if I get bitten and rabid and dead, I want you to know..."

"Yes?" he smiled expectantly.

"I want you to know that I really, really like you."  She kissed him.  "Now, let's get that varmint."

I wrote this two years ago, and hadn't revisited it until tonight.  I was writing-prompted to do so by the second of this week's two STUDIO 30 PLUS prompts, "SCRATCH."  I figure that posting it here is probably the only way I'll ever get it to see the light of day, so... why not?