Each year I used to celebrate Groundhog Day with calls to friends and relatives and with home-made cards. People would send me Groundhog Day-themed cartoons and I would add them to my collection. Then, in 1993 Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day movie was released and the holiday went commercial. You just can’t compete with popular culture and I abandoned the annual Groundhog Day celebration.

My old Penn folklore professor, Dr. Don Yoder, is an expert on Pennsylvania German traditional culture and his 2003 book, Groundhog Day, remains the go-to source on all things groundhog. To celebrate Groundhog Day 2011, I thought I’d dig a few items out of my collection and throw them up on the blog to lighten things up after last week’s storm and power outage. Happy Groundhog Day 2011!

Update (7:25 a.m.: Phil calls for an early spring!)

Cards

Groundhog Day 1987. A coworker returned the card to me with a note scribbled at the bottom.

Groundhog Day 1991.

Groundhog Day 1990.

Cartoons

1989 St. Petersburg Times. My grandfather sent this to me.

In 1991 the U.S. went to war with Iraq for the first time. This cartoon was published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle that February.

Another great St. Petersburg Times cartoon.

1991 syndicated B.C. strip.

Shortlink for this post: https://wp.me/p1bnGQ-Sj