Groundhog Day 2010: Living the Dream in Punxsutawney

Ever since my first year of university, when the movie “Groundhog Day” opened to critical acclaim and what would later become a cult following, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the film.

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa.—Ever since my first year of university, when the movie “Groundhog Day” opened to critical acclaim and what would later become a cult following, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the film. The concept captured my imagination: living a day over and over again until I (or Bill Murray of all people) got it right. Believers of various religions have since taken it as means to explain their philosophies, and at least one university professor has used it as a primer for teaching the concepts of reincarnation.

In 1993, I never imagined I‘d make it to Punxsutawney one day. As fate would have it, over a decade later, with the Internet having become a staple in mine and many others’ lives, I periodically found myself Googling my last name. The search results similarly caught my attention: I had stumbled upon an Ed Jekielek, described as the ’storm chaser’ of the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. He was one of the keepers of a 120-something-year-old-groundhog.

Some more years passed before I entered the Facebook fray, and found more Jekieleks. Contacting one of them, a young woman named Kristin, she insisted we must be related, as I looked a lot like an uncle of hers, and her grandfather Ed. Ed turned out to be Jekielek the storm chaser’s father. So with my wife and I making our way to New York City last year, and Groundhog Day 2010 approaching, it occurred to me that I was in driving distance of a what looked like a very interesting proposition. A few e-mails and phone calls later, aided by some remarkable Jekielek openness and hospitality, I had a place to stay, and VIP access to the world of the Inner Circle. Within hours of arriving in Punxsutawney on Feb. 1, I had met most of those local civic leaders who work year-in, year-out to bring Groundhog Day to fruition.