Our friends at the Mennonite Heritage Center provided a site for a gathering of the Harleysville Order of the Grundsow — "formerly known as HOG." There was a presentation including some readings of past history and the Ballad of Harleysville Hank, the current weather predictor. Alas, unlike our infamous one in the western part of the state, this one is stuffed (although that surely simplifies the logistics). But even Hank has a Facebook page! When YOP first moved to this area in the late 1960s, these "Grundsow Lodges" were surprisingly common. A bunch of community elders would don top hats and dark suits and and put on ceremonies in "the dialect," some even held a few classes to keep the language going. While this ceremony was in English, purportedly Hank was whispering to his handler in Pennsylvania Dutch. Apparently the tradition is still being carried on at a few locations.

Since the groundhog seeing his shadow — or not — is the key to his traditional prognostication, the event was scheduled to start at 6:45 am. While that is hard on a slothful retiree like Ye Olde Photographer, it does allow people who work, and school students, to get there before their day begins. Besides some speeches and costumes, there was a caldron of hot scrapple to be served on whole grain bread, enhanced with a dollop of apple butter and horseradish, coffee, hot chocolate, and to finish off, some samplings of shoofly pie and funny cake. All of these foods are large in the Pennsylvania German ("Dutch") tradition which is a big part of this area's culture.

Harleysville Hank even threw in a supplementary prediction that the Philadelphia Eagles would win the Super Bowl. While his 23-17 score prediction was off, the essence of the prediction came true — it's a miracle I tellya!

The original intent was to finish the roll of film started in a not very successful attempt to record the super moon and eclipse on January 31st, but ISO 125 and flash stressed the resources a bit. Anyway, YOP is sprinkling a few in, augmented by some from his iPhone.