Remember the Saturday Night Live sketch when Dolly Parton hosted, back in the 90s, when she had the whole cast around her telling them what it was like to grow up poor and without television in the hills? She started recounting all these crazy stories her mama had told the kids to keep them entertained...about a family that moved to Beverly Hills...about a group of American POWs who secretly ran a sabotage operation out of a prisoner of war camp in Germany...about a crazy sailor named Gilligan who was stranded on a desert island with six other people...?
This morning my nearly-six-year-old, who does not watch grown up movies (by our choice) and whose "TV" is limited to an episode of Sesame Street on the weekends told me the following story about the meaning of Ground Hog day (below the fold)...
Trying to recapture this as close to verbatim as I can remember...
"There was a guy on TV. He went to visit the groundhog on groundhog day and then he went to sleep. He woke up again! There was no snow! But it was still groundhog day! He stepped right in a puddle. And then he went to sleep again, and the next day was groundhog day too! He tried to tell his mommy it was groundhog day every day but she didn't believe him. He did some bad stuff, but then he was nice again, and then it wasn't ground hog day anymore. And that'swhat we celebrate on groundhog day."
"Buddy, where did you learn that? In school?!?"
"Yes, my friend told me."