Never Judge a Book…
A short story for Groundhog Day that’s not like the movie:
“White shit.”
My father’s voice came back to me as I tried to maneuver through the blizzard. He hated snow and having grown up in northeastern Pennsylvania, I did, too. Of course the exception to that rule had been snow days off from school.
But now I was a grown-up reporter for her hometown daily paper on her first out-of-town assignment. There were no such things as “snow days” when you’re working for a living. That was also Pop’s philosophy. He’d trudge through two foot drifts to open his hardware store.
I peered through the falling snow that was out pacing my windshield wipers. I was going about fifteen miles an hour and could tell I had a semi on my butt (another Pop-ism). I saw the green exit sign ahead of me and decided to get off Route 80 and try to find a motel for the night. By morning the snow plows would have done something to this mess.
It was a mess, one that hadn’t been predicted for western Pennsylvania. Actually the storm had dumped more than a foot on the Midwest and was supposed to have been heading for the Great Lakes region. Believing that forecast I’d headed out in my rental car for Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Yep, it was January 31 and my assignment was to interview the most famous ground hog in the country: Punxsutawney Phil.
