Groundhog's honor

There's no sense in trying to corrupt the incorruptible. No sense in trying to buy what's not for sale. So try as you might, you can’t bribe yourself into an early spring:

Punxsutawney Phil is not accepting PayPal, AmexGold or even plain hard (frozen hard) cash. With our own local New York groundhogs, it could be a different story: Malverne Mel may be malleable, Holbrook Hal may be hedgy and Staten Island Chuck may be swayed by New York City politics, but deep in the heart of rural Pennsylvania where Groundhog Day has its deepest roots, Phil’s going to tell it like it is. If he turns a cold shoulder to your misery, well, that’s his job.

Our nation’s prognosticating rodent is no Polar Pete, he’s no Vortex Vinnie, no Arctic Artie. Phil's the latest in a long line of prediction professionals, proud of the heritage that puts him in the spotlight, and out of the shadows, for one day each year.

What? You’d rather swap him out for Scrat, the prehistoric cartoon squirrel from the hit “Ice Age” films? After all, gregarious, undaunted Scrat not only could foresee the weather that lay ahead of the world, he then went out and actually caused it, and simply by pursuing the beloved acorn of his dreams, he changed the shape of entire continents.

Ah, if only it were that easy. But Phil, you see, is going to keep this game honest. He’ll declare his weather decision at the break of dawn and hours later, that very same day, he’ll decline to offer cold calculations on the Super Bowl. In fact, he’ll probably sleep right through it because spring’s own kickoff is the only one he cares about and that’s still a few weeks away.

You see, Phil is so downright upright that, even when he's curled up in happy hibernation 4 or 5 feet below, he's still a stand-up guy.