After last week’s arctic deep freeze, Toledoans might be thinking about ways to manipulate local prognosticators' forecast for spring. The sweet siren call of a Tootsie Pop could be their secret weapon to lure a groundpig inside to stay. It may have been a Valentine's sweet in 1980, but Bill Whitt’s pet took its time savoring the candy. In this Blade archive photo, his groundhog holds the lollipop stick between his front paws and prepares to take a lick. Though it may seem perplexing to wake a hibernating animal in the middle of winter to make weather predictions, the tradition has a long history. In 1899, The Blade reported German immigrants brought this proverb with them, “The badger peeps out of his hole on Candlemass day and when he finds snow shining, he draws back into his hole.” Farmers changed the forecaster to a more common animal east of the Mississippi, the groundhog. Even earlier, in 1884, the paper printed a brief credited to the Boston Post about Kentucky trying to make the day a legal holiday, “it might as be, as on that day, you can’t get a Kentuckian to do anything but watch a groundhog’s hole, anyway.” Go to thebladevault.com/memories to purchase more historical photos taken by our award-winning staff of photographers, past and present, or to purchase combinations of stories and photos.
