What will be will be

Hi neighbors. Groundhog Day was Thursday and Pete saw his shadow so six more weeks of winter weather was foreseen. Of course, the season of winter doesn't end on the calendar for six more weeks, but there's no reason to let facts like that interfere with a great tradition.

Watching to see if he sees his shadow or not is a good reason to throw a party and have a national annual event. The groundhog seems to enjoy the attention and he certainly looks healthy and well fed!

Using animal behavior to predict immediate, or far future, weather is a common practice with agricultural cultures. Even locally we have "old sayings" about woolly worms, persimmon seeds, bagworm nests, etc.

People who live and work close to livestock have said horses and cows behave differently when severe storms or earthquakes are imminent.

Just watching the animals in the field seemed enough to predict weather. But when more long-range predictions were necessary it became a habit to cut open animals to see if their entrails would fall in some particular pattern that a person trained in the art of divination could interpret.

Wars were fought, or not, based on the condition of a sheep's lungs, heart or other innards. Game animals were used as well (to protect the number of animals in domestic herds no doubt.) Birds, deer and other creatures were considered harbingers of fate.

Of course, most of the predictions were based on how the person asking for the outlook wanted the future to be. Smart fortunetellers never tell an irate dictator what they don't want to hear.

For whatever reasons, rich and poor have always wanted to know what the future holds for them. I can't imagine why anyone would want to know their future; particularly if they think it is unchangeable. Many people want to know things of little significance about whatever is on their mind at the time. A lot of questions are about particular decisions they need to make. These are always wasted time because they usually have made their decision before seeking a second opinion from the fates. Most people do what they want no matter what they find out from a fortune teller (the smart ones do anyway.) But, if the seer agrees with their already formed decision, their decision is validated; if the seer does not agree with their decision, they are a fake. Simple!

My mother was very superstitious and she would have a "saying" for almost any conceivable accidental event. Dropping things always meant something, depending on what you dropped, which way it pointed, the day and time you dropped it and whether or not you could do something to prevent a bad omen from doing a bad thing by being proactive.

I sometimes think it a pity I didn't write down all of her many ways of interpreting odd events but then most of them are better forgotten anyway.

I know silverware that was dropped always indicated company. I can understand this because most company would be coming or at least staying, for a meal. I can't remember which piece represented a man, woman or children. In hindsight, I would think spoons for children as that is what they commonly eat with, forks for women as they are more likely to eat small bites and knives for men as they represent weapons. But, I might be remembering incorrectly.

Because of my mother, superstitions have always fascinated me. Many superstitions started out representing some logical relationship between an action and an outcome, but so many of the veritable parts have changed over the decades that seeing a relationship of any kind is difficult now.

When the majority of Americans moved into cities and off farms, the ties to livestock were cut and watching animal reactions to weather became a forgotten prognosticating tool. I have not heard of any new superstitions based on city living situations. Do any of you know of any? Maybe with younger rural populations shrinking, and the past generations dying, beliefs based on a close tie with nature will become a thing of the past.

Until the next time friends remember that groundhogs usually don't crawl out of their dens on Feb. 2, and if they do they are not really concerned about human activities over the next six weeks. Enjoy the day, stay warm and don't try hugging a groundhog! Even I can predict a possible bite.