The Facebook page for the Milltown, New Jersey groundhog, uh, enthusiasts association (?) calling themselves the “Wranglers” announced on Sunday that the local Groundhog Day celebration was canceled due to the untimely death of “Milltown Mel” and their inability to procure a replacement groundhog on short notice, plus the lack of a mobile stage for the big weather forecasting event.
“We Wranglers are sad to report that Milltown Mel recently crossed over the rainbow bridge.
Considering the average lifespan of a Groundhog is about 3 years, that is not such a shock, but Mel left us at a tough time of year, when most of his fellow groundhogs are hibernating… so no babies will be available to replace him until this Spring. We tried everywhere to get a stand-in, but to no avail! On top of that, the county is not currently renting out the big Showmobile stage due to the pandemic, so we would have had that issue as well,” wrote the Wranglers in the post.
We’re going to go ahead and count this as a “saw his shadow” in a Shakespearean way because he’s dead, and also that the Vernal Equinox is on March 20th no matter what some Caucasian assclown in a freaking top hat thinks a rodent saw when it came out of its hole in the ground.