A few years back I had the privilege of covering the Greater Hilltop Groundhog Lasagna Festival. Through a combination of coordinated misinformation and a latent lack of interest this event is no more. The stalwart residents of the Hilltop have reverted to alcoholism, spousal abuse and amateur auto mechanics for their mid-winter festivities. The community has absorbed this blow and the groundhogs of Westgate Park are relieved. I should offer some small clarification. The official name of the festival was indeed the Groundhog Lasagna Festival, not the Groundhog Day Lasagna Festival. While this may imply that the festival featured actual ground-groundhog lasagna, we can not say with certainty that this was the case. Some of it did taste like chicken though...
The 1993 film Groundhog Day certainly placed February 2 back in the public mind, but with a generation's passing I suspect that it has relapsed to the status of a holiday which is noted on our calendars while going uncelebrated. This is certainly now true in the Hilltop. Whenever I am prompted to think upon Groundhog Day I recall my introduction to this tradition as a child. I remember... feelings of confusion. My juvenile mind was incapable of peeling the layers off of that onion, yet even then there was this uneasy sense that something was amiss. So when he sees his shadow it's back into his hole and there will be six more weeks of winter? And if he does not see his shadow there will be an early spring? After straightening out whether it was one way or the other the tale was accepted without further question. Sadly there are many traditions that are perpetuated in this manner.
As adults, when we've nothing better to do with our time, we are able to apply the discipline of mathematics to Groundhog Day.
Six weeks = 42 days
2 + 42 = 44
44-28 = 16
Following this formula we can determine the calendar date of March 16 to be six weeks post Groundhog Day. We are confronted with two issues right away.
First of all, I think that it is safe to say there is a general consensus that the vernal equinox arrives on March 21. March 16 falls five days short of the mark. So is that the early Spring? Have we got it backwards, or is there something else we've missed?Secondly, what about leap year? This is where it starts to get interesting.
When one factors in that additional February day we then arrive at March 15. Yet another day shy of an astronomically calibrated arrival of Spring. There is some historical significance in that date: the ides of March. Of course that is from a time when we still operated on the ten month calendar, so probably best not to muddy the waters. This date is still notable. No, it's not for some obscure Feast of Saint Something-or-other. Patrick, with all the debauchery that entails, has the March Saint calendar pretty well locked up. March 15 is a herald of something less saintly and, dare I say, more sinister in nature. For a little over 200 years now the great, black flocks of the homely, unwanted turkey vulture have reliably returned to the bluffs above Hinckley Lake; a place that is today known as The Buzzard's Roost.
On March 15 they say that "the buzzards return to Hinckley". Every year. Even on leap years. The accuracy and consistency of these carrion feasting scavengers is uncanny. The groundhog's prognostication is not for the start of spring. That is only a happy accident. Just as John the Baptist went before his Master, the humble rodent known as groundhog blazes the path for the ghoulish Buzzards of Hinckley and their annual return. The groundhog is no doubt the beneficiary of a good press agent, but let's be fair. How does one pitch the turkey vulture? Let's see.... Buzzard, versus Turkey Vulture. Which one sounds better? No? Which one is less off-putting? See what I mean? Interests and hobbies? Oh yeah, they eat dead stuff. Really not choosy, just so long as it's dead. No refrigeration required.
Perhaps we have, only on account of the buzzard's gruesome face, misjudged the character of this creature. Though they are equipped with fearsome beaks and talons, easily rivaling those of hawks or ospreys, the buzzard has voluntarily elected to not kill their own food. It's a moral stance, kind of like being a vegan. Any self respecting carnivore knows that the whole flesh eating experience can only be fully appreciated by killing one's own prey before dining. Otherwise it's just hamburger, some pre-packaged patty drawn from the inexhaustible supply of your local refrigerated & frozen food warehouse. The buzzards committing this act of self denial would suggest that they may be more like us than we know. Just as we have come to trust the safety of city water to some nameless municipal employees at the local wastewater treatment plant, the buzzard has come to accept that the carrion feast is derived from a righteous kill and is thus safe to eat.
We must then ask ourselves if the precision timing of their annual return to Hinckley is mere instinct, or is it the execution of a conscious plan? There are other questions we should be asking. Where have the buzzards been all that time? What have they been doing? Are they in league with the groundhog? Did they all leave at once and when? And finally, do they also always depart on the same day? Seems like someone would have been keeping track of this.
The groundhog's behavior predicted either an early spring, or a spring more or less on schedule. His has been a happy task and he has, if not happily, at least played along for our amusement. Frankly it's a pretty low bar that he has been asked to reach. The groundhog is only asked to offer his prediction for the start of one season. It is one way or the other with no great consequence to anyone in either case. There is no pressure to be right the rest of the year. Other than at Groundhog Day every year no one really gives a shit what groundhogs think about anything.
What then is the significance of Buzzard Day? What is to be predicted by their arrival, on time, every year? Though they were never asked, the buzzards carry a more weighty burden. Just as the rainbow serves as the symbol of a happy promise, so too does the annual arrival at the Buzzard's Roost every March 15 act as a concrete reminder. It tells us that for at least the last couple hundred years, in good times and in bad, no matter what the circumstances: there will always be enough dead to eat. That message, while it does not carry the optimism or hope found in the groundhog's tale, is in fact more instructive as to our own condition, the general state of things and, the vast grey area where these two fields are conjoined. It is in that temporal plain the buzzard's tale resides and is made manifest.
We have been conditioned to abhor slaughter, even when our most base instincts tell us that letting it happen will reap a net benefit. As a species we have been mostly softened by civilization. By and large this has spawned a population that no longer has the stomach for the kind of cruel yet impartial judgments rendered by nature. Unable to deny these things we have opted to simply ignore them, inasmuch as we are able. Failing this most will simply resort to outright denial; to simply pretend that these phenomena do not occur. Whether by fire, flood, invasive species or random mutation slaughter occurs with a certain regularity in nature. In all of it's various forms there is a common element. There is the slaughter, and then there is the aftermath. This social conditioning against it is less of a moral objection than it is an underlying aversion to the gruesome task of all that clean up. This, my friends, is the meat of the buzzard's tale.
Every year, in times good or ill, there is always enough dead to eat. The buzzard cleans all of the carrion. Whatever they are unable to take from the bones the flies easily finish off. This prevents widespread putrefaction and the number of diseases and plagues thereby associated. Hurray! Makes you want to adopt one now, don't it? The buzzards will digest all that rancid meat, thus filtering those toxins from our environment, and shit it out in a sterile form at a secure, undisclosed location. The buzzard looks for no thanks, expects no considerations for these services rendered. It's just a job they do. A job that might easily go unfilled, were it not for the buzzard's unique digestive characteristics. Thus has nature ordained it.
The deeper message to be found here, if indeed there be any, is that the buzzards' continued and precise return to Hinckley signals to us that no matter how badly we manage to louse things up, there will always be someone along after to clean up the mess. They're not much to look at, the job they do is not glamorous, but they show up and complete the task nonetheless. This is how it is for those thankless tasks; the distasteful yet necessary. How easily this translates to human vocations in society. The buzzard's tale is only noteworthy in the event that they should ever stop showing up. If that should ever happen it would indicate that either there are no more dead to be eaten, or that there are so many dead as to simply be beyond their capacity. Neither case is good, I assure you.
"A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist." Stewart Alsop
