853: Groundhog Day

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Speaker 2 It's a little ritual that Parker invented for herself. It's always the same every year around this time of year.
February 2nd, to be exact.

Speaker 4 February 2nd, which is Groundhog Day. At 10.30 at night, I turn on the movie Groundhog Day.

Speaker 7 Rita, I'm reliving the same day over and over.

Speaker 9 Groundhog Day.

Speaker 2 Groundhog Day, of course, is the 1993 Bill Murray comedy about a self-centered weatherman who gets trapped in time, repeating the same day again and again.

Speaker 2 A day where he covers a Groundhog Day ceremony on local TV.

Speaker 10 Once a year, the eyes of the nation turn to this tiny hamlet in western Pennsylvania to watch a master at work. The master?

Speaker 10 Hunksatoni Phil, the world's most famous weatherman, the Groundhog, who, as legend has it, can predict the coming of an early spring.

Speaker 2 Bill Murray spends the whole film repeating February 2nd.

Speaker 12 Well, it's Groundhog Day.

Speaker 7 Again?

Speaker 3 Until finally, at the end of the film,

Speaker 2 he unsticks himself in time and wakes up on the next day.

Speaker 3 Again, here's Parker.

Speaker 4 I time it up so that

Speaker 4 when it's around midnight, when it's February 3rd

Speaker 5 in the world,

Speaker 4 it's February 3rd in the movie. So when it's February 3rd in the movie, it becomes February 3rd in the world,

Speaker 4 which is my birthday. So I do it as like, I call it like a, like, I'm slowly boiling myself into my birthday.

Speaker 2 barker says she's not a big birthday person but this is a little thing she's done for herself to mark the day ever since she was 22.

Speaker 4 i first saw groundhog day in a film class i was in a program where i was like the only black person the only woman everyone was 10 years older than me so this was like film studies this is film school yeah okay um but so it was just it was a very lonely place

Speaker 2 So she created this birthday movie night for herself to do alone that she still does alone every year with the film Groundhog Day that she's gonna do this year for the 16th time

Speaker 2 and maybe you think that means that she's really into the film Groundhog Day

Speaker 5 nope I don't love the movie the movie's fine

Speaker 4 like it's okay I don't mind it I don't find it

Speaker 4 it's not my brand of humor

Speaker 4 also like it's I don't know in the 21st century some of the stuff is fairly problematic so like for instance

Speaker 4 Well, there's whole sequences where

Speaker 4 Phil Connor, who is Bill Murray's character, is trying to seduce two women. And he keeps repeating the day so he can, like,

Speaker 4 ascertain information to seduce them.

Speaker 7 Can I buy you a drink?

Speaker 15 Okay. Sweet removes in the rots with the twist, please.

Speaker 4 So it's not, you know, it's not, like, known consent.

Speaker 2 Right, so he's tricking them into that.

Speaker 4 He's tricking them into hooking up with him.

Speaker 7 Can I buy you a drink?

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 7 Sweet vermouth, rocks with a twist, please.

Speaker 16 That's my favorite drink.

Speaker 7 Mine too.

Speaker 7 It always makes me think of Rome. The way the sun hits the buildings in the afternoon.

Speaker 2 Fargo says there are lots of films she'd much rather be watching once a year.

Speaker 2 Year after year.

Speaker 2 Like her favorite film, Point Break, the Gianner Reef surfing film.

Speaker 14 That I could

Speaker 4 watch forever and not be mad about. Like the there, that's fine.
But the like the past however long years I've watched Groundhog Day,

Speaker 4 again, it's fine.

Speaker 2 It's fine.

Speaker 3 But you do it every year.

Speaker 4 Maybe I don't totally understand why I still do it like for so long.

Speaker 6 But it works for me.

Speaker 4 Like it's a thing that I can do for myself by myself.

Speaker 4 And the repetition is comforting, even if I'm forcing myself to do it. Like I'm not a person who's good at

Speaker 5 repetition. Like, I, like I ADHD, my brain's all over the place.

Speaker 14 But

Speaker 4 February 2nd, 10.30 p.m., I can turn on Groundhog Day. I know what I'm getting into.

Speaker 4 And then I am absorbed by the movie. And then all of a sudden it ends.

Speaker 5 And I go, oh, that's right.

Speaker 4 It's after midnight. I was born.

Speaker 4 There's a comfort in that.

Speaker 2 But the thing that makes you feel comforting is the repetition. And it's a movie about how awful repetition is.

Speaker 4 Yeah, there's an irony to it, I'm aware.

Speaker 4 But I like the repetition, Groundhog Day, the repetition is awful, but like the end result of the repetition isn't half bad. Like he like Phil totally improves himself.

Speaker 4 He learns how to be a considerate human being. One of the last things he says to Andy McDowell in the movie is like, What can I do for you?

Speaker 2 What a day on our program for Groundhog Day: the power of repetition, how it can be utterly devastating to do something you love dozens of times or hundreds of times. You can rob it of all feeling.

Speaker 2 You can turn it into drudgery.

Speaker 2 But repetition can also do the opposite. The more you do something, the more you can find in it and live in it.

Speaker 2 I've said these next few words hundreds of times, and I said them today, excited for what is to come this hour. From WBEZ Chicago, this is American Life.

Speaker 13 I'm Ara Glass.

Speaker 20 Stay with us.

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Speaker 2 This is American Life. Actuan, will you still slug me tomorrow?

Speaker 2 Sometimes, choosing to repeat the same moment over and over again is an act of love. Abiva de Kornfeld has his true life example.

Speaker 22 Bridie and her dad Bryn have been playing the same game for decades. It's called a pinch and a punch.

Speaker 23 The rules of the game are you say pinch and a punch first day of the month no returns. Obviously the no returns is important.

Speaker 23 When I was little when we started doing this we would you know gently of course actually do the little pinch and a punch first day of the month.

Speaker 22 One of them would actually pinch and punch the other.

Speaker 23 But over the years as the way we've done it has become more inventive and stylish and now that we live in different countries, obviously the physical element is kind of removed, so it is often just

Speaker 23 something written down or over the phone.

Speaker 22 Okay, so it can be any form. It just has to reach the other person

Speaker 22 before their pinch and punch reaches you.

Speaker 23 That's right.

Speaker 22 They first started playing this game when Brady was really little. She can't really remember ever not playing it.
It was just one of the many games they played.

Speaker 22 Bryn traveled a lot for work when Brady was young, and the games were a way for them to stay connected while he was gone. But pinch and punch, this is the game that stuck.
It kept going for years.

Speaker 22 It really leveled up when Brady was in secondary school.

Speaker 23 One day, when Brady was 14, I got pulled out of class and sent to the principal's office, so I immediately assumed I was in deep trouble. And I was a very good kid at school.

Speaker 23 I never did anything naughty, so going to the principal's office was, you know, really out of character so I was immediately terrified so I walk to the principal's office and there's the principal there's this other guy holding a fancy looking envelope I open the envelope message for Bridie Connell and it's pinch and a punch first day of the month no returns and I think at that point in dad's mind I'm pretty sure he's gone okay well I've escalated this game to the you know highest degree she's never going to come back from that but I think he forgets that he has passed on his extreme competitiveness to me and from then it kind of kicked off

Speaker 22 these days now that bridie's grown up and moved out most of the pinches and punches are low-key a phone call a text sometimes bryn or bridy will try to disguise the sentence in an email sent to the whole family Brady says her dad has learned to not open anything from her that's sent just to him on the first of the month.

Speaker 22 So month in and month out, Bryn and Brady are living in this very specific type of loop, where, in order for them to stay in the loop, they have to keep changing it, inventing new ways to win.

Speaker 22 Once, a few years ago, Bridie had to get jaw surgery on the first of the month.

Speaker 22 Her dad was her next of kin, and so she mocked up a fake medical form for her dad to sign, and convinced the nurse to tuck her fake form in with the rest. Bridie proudly won that month.

Speaker 22 That was kind of a famous win for her, actually, because while Bridie wins more often, her dad's wins tend to be more memorable. His have more flair.

Speaker 22 Like, once, he convinced Brady's best friend to interrupt her own wedding to deliver a pinch and punch. He even got Bridie while she was on live radio.

Speaker 22 The family is from New Zealand, but Bridie lives and works in Sydney, where she was a guest on this weekly local radio show. And Bryn conspired with the host to get her on air.

Speaker 8 Hey, Bridie. Yes.

Speaker 24 I got an email today from New Zealand. I don't often get emails from New Zealand.
But thankfully, you have also been trained in the internet.

Speaker 23 It was from... Was it from mum or dad?

Speaker 24 Do you know a man called Bryn Connell? Bryn Connell?

Speaker 8 Okay, that is my dad, yep.

Speaker 24 We had a long discussion about the seasons, days of the month, New Zealand time being... Oh, no, you didn't!

Speaker 24 A pinch and a punch for the first of the month, he says on his understanding with New Zealand time.

Speaker 22 Over time, the rules have evolved. No middle of the night calls, you have to respect time zones.

Speaker 22 Also, the game is formally suspended on New Year's Eve since Bridie and Bryn would hijack the countdown for their game and, according to Bridie's mom, kept, quote, ruining the holiday.

Speaker 22 Bridie says her dad escalated the game to a whole new level in 2019. She was flying home to New Zealand for her cousin Jeremy's 30th birthday party.

Speaker 22 The flight was on May 1st, very early in the morning.

Speaker 23 And as you know, we have rules about really, really, really early

Speaker 23 morning wake-up calls and pension-a-punch calls are not allowed and they haven't been allowed for years. So I thought, I'm just going to have to wait.

Speaker 23 I'm just going to have to hope that by the time I arrive in New Zealand, which will still be fairly early, that dad's forgotten and I can get in there and win for the month of May.

Speaker 23 And then,

Speaker 23 you know, that was all I thought about it. And then I got onto the plane, I boarded, I took my seat, and I'd sat down on the plane.

Speaker 23 And then about five minutes later, while everyone's still, you know, filing into the plane, the cabin manager comes up to me and says, oh, excuse me, Miss Connell,

Speaker 23 you've been moved.

Speaker 22 The flight attendant tells her she's getting bumped up to premium economy and brings her to her new seat.

Speaker 23 And then he said, oh, by the way, I've got something for you. And he handed me an envelope.

Speaker 23 I just thought, oh, maybe I'm about to be, maybe this is part of the premium economy service, maybe it's a menu, I don't know what it is. As you can tell, I am not used to that premium economy life.

Speaker 23 And I opened the envelope, and it was a letter from my dad saying, I hope you have a great flight. I can't wait to see you when you land.

Speaker 23 And also, just something to reflect on while you're winging your way across the Tasman pinch and a punch first day of the month, no returns.

Speaker 22 She spent the rest of the flight thinking about how she would get him back. Luckily for Bridie, Air New Zealand is apparently extremely into pranks and offered to help.

Speaker 22 So together, they made a fake Father's Day-themed ad for the airline. Air New Zealand actually got real pilots and flight attendants to appear in this short video, which Bridie wrote.

Speaker 22 And then she got her mom to show it to her dad.

Speaker 25 It's Father's Day in New Zealand, and we want to say thanks to all the amazing dads out there.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Started off, thank you for being such a wonderful dad.

Speaker 11 Well, that's that's generic.

Speaker 22 This, of course, is Bryn Connell.

Speaker 22 The video starts out thanking dads for doing regular dad stuff.

Speaker 22 But as it progresses, it starts getting more and more specific, naming things Bryn has actually done.

Speaker 11 Yeah, thank you for building me a fort when I was young.

Speaker 9 I'm thinking, oh, I did that.

Speaker 11 And they were saying things like, thank you for your really bad dad jokes, someone would say.

Speaker 9 Like, oh, I do that.

Speaker 11 Thank you for cooking such great roast dinners.

Speaker 9 I do that as well.

Speaker 9 I was naive.

Speaker 27 We love your generosity.

Speaker 25 Your spirit.

Speaker 11 And then a female pilot came on and said,

Speaker 9 That means you, Bryn Connell.

Speaker 22 Yes, you.

Speaker 23 Bryn Connell, you're always playing jokes. And then when the video changes and it becomes clear that

Speaker 23 they're talking to him, he just obviously does not compute for like 10 seconds. And then he was like,

Speaker 5 what?

Speaker 5 What?

Speaker 5 Hang on.

Speaker 22 There are 12 firsts of the month each year, and Bridie and Bryn have been playing this game for roughly 25 years, so they've done hundreds of pinches and punches at this point.

Speaker 22 The thing about having such a long-running game, though, is that life happens all around it. All the good and bad.

Speaker 22 A few years ago, Bridie lost someone very close to her.

Speaker 11 Over the period of this tragedy,

Speaker 11 the first of the month rolled around,

Speaker 11 and I thought, should I do something or not?

Speaker 26 Because she was feeling

Speaker 11 very bruised and lonely and desperate. And I chose to.
And it was just something that she could reach out to and go, yeah, dad's here.

Speaker 9 It's okay.

Speaker 11 And she just came out to me later and gave me a big cuddle and said, that's just what I needed.

Speaker 26 Thank you, Daddy.

Speaker 11 And she only calls me daddy on very rare occasions.

Speaker 3 And I can't even remember what it was.

Speaker 11 I think it was just something jelly benial that month, but it was,

Speaker 11 I'm in your corner, honey, I'm still here.

Speaker 22 There's a lie built into the premise of pinch and punch. It's when they say no returns.
They say it every month, and every month they return.

Speaker 2 Viva DeKornfeld is a producer on our show.

Speaker 2 F2, I'll repeat the question.

Speaker 2 So our show today is about Groundhog Day and what repeating the same thing over and over can accomplish or reveal.

Speaker 2 And I don't want to say much about this next item before it starts, except to say that it is a common thing when radio reporters sit down to interview somebody, we have to set the record volume properly.

Speaker 2 So we need the interviewee to just say some words about something while we set recording levels.

Speaker 2 And so we'll ask them some kind of, you know, neutral question to describe the route they took to work that morning or what they had for breakfast. This comes from radio producer Talia Ugustedis.

Speaker 23 This needs to be actually quite close to you.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 16 Can you tell me what you have for breakfast so I can check the levels?

Speaker 19 Yes, the answer is probably I can't remember.

Speaker 27 Really? Oh, no, porridge, porridge.

Speaker 19 Porridge and blueberries.

Speaker 13 You always have the same thing for breakfast, it's not hard to remember.

Speaker 17 Okay, porridge and blueberries.

Speaker 16 Do you want to tell me what you've had for breakfast this morning?

Speaker 13 Well, if I can remember.

Speaker 19 Oh, yes, I had

Speaker 27 porridge. Yeah,

Speaker 19 porridge and

Speaker 19 delicious uh

Speaker 19 berries

Speaker 18 uh do you want to tell me what you had for breakfast this morning

Speaker 19 honestly i can't remember oh yes i can it's um porridge as usual

Speaker 16 i'm just

Speaker 16 going to check the levels so

Speaker 16 do you remember what we do to check the levels no

Speaker 16 what did you have for breakfast this morning?

Speaker 27 Uh, porridge

Speaker 17 and berries.

Speaker 13 So, okay.

Speaker 16 I just need to check the levels. Do you remember what we do to check the levels?

Speaker 19 What?

Speaker 17 We talked about whether or not what I had for breakfast.

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 17 So, I had um

Speaker 19 Did we have it for breakfast?

Speaker 5 Anyway, it it was

Speaker 19 lovely.

Speaker 19 Just a little smithful.

Speaker 20 Sorry it should take so long.

Speaker 16 No, that's okay.

Speaker 13 Let me just check the levels.

Speaker 16 What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Speaker 16 Same as usual.

Speaker 19 Which, of course, I can't remember.

Speaker 16 It's in your mouth. What does it taste like then?

Speaker 19 It tastes absolutely delicious.

Speaker 14 I'm flattered.

Speaker 16 What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Speaker 17 I had um

Speaker 19 break I had um

Speaker 19 I was gonna say breakfast. I had um

Speaker 19 wait a sec, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 17 That's okay.

Speaker 19 Don't worry if you can't remember, we'll just um

Speaker 16 do you want a different question?

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 16 What did you have for breakfast today?

Speaker 5 Um I probably had uh porridge

Speaker 19 and

Speaker 19 stuff

Speaker 14 yeah,

Speaker 17 and nice

Speaker 5 things

Speaker 16 You didn't eat much of it today.

Speaker 16 Do you wanna shall we do that before we start?

Speaker 16 Just try a bit more? No, I can't.

Speaker 16 Okay, no.

Speaker 13 Let's start then.

Speaker 13 Sorry, it's a bit quick. Um

Speaker 13 I might not manage this.

Speaker 16 Maybe we shouldn't do the recording today.

Speaker 16 Oh dear.

Speaker 16 Oh dear, okay.

Speaker 2 That story from Talyo Ugostetis. She's the creator of the podcast, Unreality.
She first produced this story for Shortcuts, a falling tree production for BBC Radio 4.

Speaker 11 Act 3, Raiders of the Lost Chard.

Speaker 2 Sometimes the repeating situation that you find yourself stuck in every day is something you do not like, and you want it to end.

Speaker 2 And I guess, like, you know, Bill Murray, who is caught on repeat in that old movie, you have to strategize and figure out how to minimize the unpleasantness.

Speaker 2 David Kestenbaum has this story about that.

Speaker 12 The garden was a thing of beauty. Jeff had just moved into a new house in Middletown, Delaware, kind of a rural area.
The house did not have a garden, so he built one.

Speaker 12 Jeff is a do-it-yourself kind of guy, handy with stuff, fixing cars, things around the house. The garden he makes is pretty big.
He turns over all the soil, plants rows of seeds.

Speaker 13 Takes a long time.

Speaker 28 It's really pristine, you know, everything's labeled,

Speaker 28 backs up to a field, so it's

Speaker 28 pretty good scenery. Sometimes I'll just sit out there and just relax, look around, look at the different plants growing.

Speaker 28 You know, it's really peaceful.

Speaker 12 But gardening, as the writer Margaret Atwood has noted, is not a rational act. In nature, plants do not grow in tidy, pristine, labeled rows.

Speaker 12 In fact, nature does not care at all about your little setup.

Speaker 12 Jeff was on vacation when it happened. A friend was watering his garden for him.

Speaker 28 And he had called me and he said, hey man,

Speaker 28 something's like eating all these plants. And he showed me a picture and I was like, oh man, that's horrible.
So when I came back,

Speaker 28 I had noticed that, you know, my sweet potato plants were pretty much gone.

Speaker 12 Not just the sweet potatoes.

Speaker 28 Like, you know, there was stuff

Speaker 28 chunks off the plants, off the

Speaker 28 fruits, you know, the vegetables, the tomatoes had chunks in them, cucumbers had chunks in them.

Speaker 12 Chunks eaten out of them.

Speaker 28 Yeah, just chunks missing randomly

Speaker 28 throughout the whole garden. It was like a selective process.

Speaker 12 Jeff is really upset. He has no idea what is eating his vegetables.
So he sets out a trap. One of those cage things that closes when an animal goes inside.
And how did that work?

Speaker 2 A complete failure.

Speaker 12 Goes out to check on the trap.

Speaker 14 Empty.

Speaker 12 Food in it, untouched. What is eating the garden? Jeff runs through a list of possibilities.

Speaker 28 Thought it would be a deer,

Speaker 28 maybe birds, rabbits, squirrels, or like even a neighbor or human.

Speaker 12 Oh, a neighbor.

Speaker 28 You never know, right? I mean,

Speaker 28 it could be anybody.

Speaker 14 Yeah, but one

Speaker 12 bite out of a tomato?

Speaker 28 I wouldn't put it past them.

Speaker 12 Okay, I never lived where you live in Delaware, so I'll trust you.

Speaker 12 Jeff thinks enough with this. It really is driving him kind of mad.
So he gets a motion detector camera.

Speaker 12 He borrows it from his brother, uses electrical tape to tape it to this old bucket he has, and sticks it in the garden. It's one of those cameras that sends videos to your phone.
So Jeff waits.

Speaker 12 He does not have to wait long.

Speaker 28 I'm at work. Actually, it was like right at lunchtime.
And I looked right at my phone because I got the notification. I was like, really eager, like surprise.
Like, went and I checked it.

Speaker 12 And I just want to pause here to describe the cinematic perfection of this next moment. What Jeff sees at first in the video is nothing.

Speaker 12 Like the camera is triggered off, something blowing in the breeze. You see a log in the background and the garden fence.

Speaker 12 And then a groundhog pops up with what appears to be a cucumber in its paws, rapidly chewing. It is staring right into the camera, head on.
Takes up the whole frame. So close, you can hear it chewing

Speaker 28 really funny to see he's just got this look on his face it was almost as if he was saying yeah it's me i'm the one eating your garden up what are you gonna do about it what are you gonna do about it

Speaker 28 so at first when i saw it was a groundhog i was like oh they dig so i was like i'll put the you know, the logs around.

Speaker 12 Like around the base of the fencing?

Speaker 28 Around the base. Maybe that'll help.
And no, it didn't. Then I was like, well, let me try to get a little bit more slick.
And I would put like a garden boundary, like landscape boundary.

Speaker 28 I would put it under the ground about like

Speaker 28 maybe like a foot. So it'd be like a wall almost underground.
And so if even if they did dig, they'd hit the wall, right? And you'd think they would stop, right?

Speaker 14 Right. No.

Speaker 28 They just keep digging down until they got under it and then came back out the other side like it wasn't even there.

Speaker 28 These are the kind of things I was dealing with, along with seeing him in the camera every day.

Speaker 12 Every day it was, get up, drive to work, alert on phone, Groundhog. Get up, drive to work, alert on phone, Groundhog.
The only thing that changed was the image. Groundhog with one of Jeff's tomatoes.

Speaker 12 Groundhog with zucchini.

Speaker 14 Groundhog with corn.

Speaker 12 Never peppers somehow.

Speaker 2 Apparently I didn't like peppers.

Speaker 12 He is in a Groundhog Day situation with an actual Groundhog,

Speaker 12 who, if he has to admit, is is kind of cute.

Speaker 28 So I said, you know what? I'm gonna name you Chunk.

Speaker 28 It seemed very fitting, because he was taking chunks out of the vegetables.

Speaker 12 I feel like once you name the groundhog, you are crossing some kind of line, you know?

Speaker 12 I think you lost in that moment.

Speaker 28 Probably, in some senses.

Speaker 12 At some point, a female groundhug turns up. Presumably she was Chunk's partner.
Jeff names her Nibbles. But now he has two Groundhogs.

Speaker 12 Weirdly, both of them would pop up on camera together, facing the same direction, each eating something of his.

Speaker 12 Jeff, desperate now, has one last idea for how to get out of this endless loop. And when I heard it, it seemed both adorable and completely unlikely to work.

Speaker 12 The following year, when it's time to plant the garden again, he goes out with his shovel, turns over more earth, and I gave them like their very own garden. Oh my god.

Speaker 28 Yeah, I literally planted them their their own garden.

Speaker 12 A reporter for the website The Dodo heard about the story. The resulting video was titled, Guy Builds Veggie Garden for a Family of Groundhogs.

Speaker 12 Which I saw and had questions about. That's why I called Jeff in the first place.
I did not see how that was going to work.

Speaker 12 Sure, now the Groundhogs have their own garden that does not have some big fence around it. But wouldn't they eat their vegetables and then still break through the fencing into his like before?

Speaker 12 What's to stop them? Did the plan actually work? The goal is to get them to stay out of your garden. Do they stay out of your garden?

Speaker 28 Yeah, for the most part, because like you give them like

Speaker 28 their own plants around that are easier for them to get to, and then you kind of secure yours up more to where it's more effort. And it's just like anyone, they're going to go for the easiest,

Speaker 28 you know, thing, right?

Speaker 28 The lowest hanging fruit.

Speaker 12 That's kind of genius, I have to say.

Speaker 28 It works.

Speaker 12 you said for the most part well i mean yeah

Speaker 28 there are times when they will still eat my vegetables right but it's not as bad right because it's they got other options but if they somehow happen to get into my garden which they have especially the babies because the babies are real small wait they can get in wait babies oh yeah yeah we have babies how many groundhogs do you have now

Speaker 28 seven

Speaker 12 I feel like you started out one place and you ended up in a very different one.

Speaker 28 Very. I embraced it, you know?

Speaker 28 And especially with seeing him in the camera, it was like it. It made it easy to give up.

Speaker 28 You know, seeing him in the camera every day,

Speaker 28 it eventually won my heart over.

Speaker 12 Junk is still there. Jeff less saw him in the fall.
He's probably hibernating under the shed. It's been seven years at this point, which is old for a groundhog.

Speaker 2 Though they can live longer, it helps to have a reliable food source.

Speaker 2 David Kescamau is our show's senior editor.

Speaker 2 Coming up, One Man combats the chaos of the world on a narrow block in Brooklyn, week after week, every Tuesday and Thursday. That's in a minute.

Speaker 3 Chicago Bubba Radio, when our program continues.

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Speaker 26 the long

Speaker 26 fuse.

Speaker 3 I had forgotten about that one. A long fuse.

Speaker 2 Doing this theme this week, I have to admit, made me really think about what it feels like to do our program week after week, 853 times. This is our 853rd episode.

Speaker 2 And it does feel very different making the show for the 853rd time than it did at the very beginning. Definitely.

Speaker 2 There is a sameness to doing things again and again every week that is not entirely pleasant.

Speaker 14 But,

Speaker 2 of course, while the process of making a show is always the same, the content of the show changes so much.

Speaker 2 And there's just something about, I don't know how to put this, like creating the little dream that radio can be. It always is, I don't know, it just gets to me.

Speaker 2 When the music enters.

Speaker 2 Thank you for that.

Speaker 2 Everything you say just sounds smarter when you're saying it over music.

Speaker 2 And just making all the little parts of the show perfect, you know, like, or at least, yeah, as obsessively perfect as you can make it. It's just so easy to get lost in that.

Speaker 2 Even on the 853rd time.

Speaker 3 Act four, heart of parkness.

Speaker 2 People who own cars in certain cities really are just asking for pain. Certain cities are not set up for them and deliver regular, repeated punishment to car owners.

Speaker 2 Valerie Kipness' hometown definitely does that on a schedule that's literally posted on signs.

Speaker 6 Growing up in New York, you sort of get used to the fact that for a few days every week, your street becomes total chaos. That's because the street cleaning truck is scheduled to come through.

Speaker 6 The first day, you can't park on the left-hand side, so the sweeper can drive down that way. The second day, you can't park on the right.

Speaker 6 And it's not like there are empty spaces on other blocks you can move your car to. So all over New York, what people do on street cleaning day is double park.

Speaker 6 They move their car so it's sitting next to the row of parked cars on the other side. And then they just leave their cars there.

Speaker 6 double parked, unattended, in the middle of the street for one and a half hours, making room for the street cleaner to sweep next to the curb where their car had just sat.

Speaker 6 Eight million people, and this is the system we use.

Speaker 6 A few years ago, I moved to a new neighborhood where the situation is even more intense.

Speaker 6 The street I live on now is incredibly narrow, just under 25 feet across. I know because I measured.

Speaker 6 Which means that if you don't double park perfectly, very close to the row of already parked cars, you end up blocking all traffic. No cars, no street cleaner can get through.

Speaker 6 And if one neighbor doesn't come out and move their car, that can block all traffic too.

Speaker 6 But this new street I live on also came with something I'd never seen before. A guy who twice a week has made it his job to try to make this all run smoothly.

Speaker 6 His persistence, his dedication to this thankless job, has always sort of puzzled me. So I went out with him on a Thursday this fall.

Speaker 6 His name is David, in his 50s, a former Marine,

Speaker 6 and as it happens my landlord not on this side it's a few minutes before 1130 when the whole thing begins on our street

Speaker 6 david's wearing his usual uniform of a crisp gray cotton t-shirt and basketball shorts 1130 just get in your cars double park them

Speaker 20 and everything works like a charm brandon how wire they're gonna be moving their cars now you hear me like i like i'm

Speaker 20 becoming like

Speaker 6 yakron a blabber mouth but um david always worries he's coming on too strong.

Speaker 20 Yeah, so he's moving now. The guy in the white car's moving, Bob's moving.
You'll all be able to put your cars right down there.

Speaker 6 His goal this morning is to get everyone on the left side neatly double parking down the middle of our street. To do this, he tries to know everyone on the block.

Speaker 6 Which cars belong to who, who tends to run late, who runs early, who's new around here, who needs a reminder. Like, let me read you some of our most recent texts.
Hey, Valerie, it's time for the car.

Speaker 6 Hey, Valerie, is that your car across the street?

Speaker 5 Hey, Valerie, don't forget about the car.

Speaker 6 Today, I'm on time.

Speaker 20 You know what? You should go right between there.

Speaker 6 Well, this guy's gonna leave right now, I think.

Speaker 20 So, yeah, he's waiting for his wife, but you go right behind James.

Speaker 6 Where are you gonna pull up?

Speaker 20 I'm gonna see what I gotta do.

Speaker 6 David's got a black grand Cherokee Jeep. It's about midway up the block.

Speaker 20 Because I'm gonna either pull up on the sidewalk right here,

Speaker 20 tell him to move in, or whatever it is.

Speaker 18 Oh no, the honking's starting.

Speaker 14 Yeah, you're gonna have to.

Speaker 6 All right, I'm moving my car. He spots James, our neighbor, who just walked out of his house.

Speaker 20 How are you, James?

Speaker 14 Are we supposed to move the car? Yeah, we're parking now.

Speaker 20 So we're trying to make a plan.

Speaker 20 She's gonna move her car now, too, so you might as well,

Speaker 20 if you wanna pull right here for now, and she's gonna move and then you could follow suit.

Speaker 6 David nods his head in the direction of my car. Like, come on, enough with the interview.
Alright, I'm moving, I'm moving. It's a really tight parking job.

Speaker 6 You have to get so close to the car on the other side of the street that your side view mirrors touch. Got it, back up.

Speaker 2 Just back up about another.

Speaker 2 I'll tell you when you stop.

Speaker 2 Just watch his side. Don't get...

Speaker 28 Yeah, you're good, you go.

Speaker 6 Sometimes, when I don't do a good job, David will offer to help, grab my keys, and repark the car for me. Today, I I do okay.
He lets it be.

Speaker 6 It's a couple minutes past 11.30 when all the cars are supposed to have been moved, but only a few have.

Speaker 6 A few other neighbors, one holding a toddler, the other clearly on a work call, have started coming out of their houses. David waves at them and signals for them to move their cars.

Speaker 6 We've still got time before the street sweeper comes.

Speaker 23 What are you gonna do?

Speaker 20 I gotta sit in the car.

Speaker 6 Okay, I'm gonna sit with you then.

Speaker 6 We climb in. He double parks.

Speaker 6 Before David started doing this job, when he was still just a kid growing up on the block, someone else did it. He was kind of a local legend, a guy named Eddie.

Speaker 20 Like years ago, Eddie DeMayo was, we called him DeMaya.

Speaker 20 You know, we were kids and we used to sit there and just watch him like, you know, like,

Speaker 20 like he's out of his mind.

Speaker 6 One old-timer on the block told me, hey, don't make a hero out of Eddie.

Speaker 6 Apparently, he was a complicated guy, would sit in a lawn chair in the street so that cars couldn't get through, once lay down in the road to save a parking spot for his daughter-in-law.

Speaker 6 But still, he kept things in order.

Speaker 20 Like, you know, like the chess master, you, you, you go there, you go here. With you going there, you're gonna make it easier for him to pull over there.

Speaker 20 He's gonna come out now, he's gonna pull behind you, and everything works.

Speaker 6 Oh, I know someone who does something just like that, David.

Speaker 20 Yeah, I know. I became that person.

Speaker 6 Actually, it wasn't like David just became that person. When Eddie got old, he actually passed the mantle to David.

Speaker 20 Years ago, he goes, Dave, you took the helm.

Speaker 6 But it's gotten harder. When Eddie was the street parking conductor, most houses had one car.
And the neighbors all knew each other well. We're all kind of on board with this parking system.

Speaker 6 They've grabbed the keys and moved the car for one another. But recently, this block has really changed.
Something like a quarter of the houses have been sold to new folks.

Speaker 6 Used to be a blue-collar Italian neighborhood. Now, it's got people with enough money to throw millions of dollars into buying and gut renovating entire brownstones.

Speaker 6 On street cleaning day, the new people seem happy to leave their cars and get a ticket.

Speaker 6 And also, because of their renovations, there are constantly trucks parked on the street, which take up space in this game of parking Tetris.

Speaker 6 Michelle, one of our neighbors, walks past us, looking frustrated. David points to her and shakes his head.

Speaker 20 Michelle, she's looking for a double park spot now.

Speaker 20 Um, and she lives on the block. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 6 Michelle can't double park her car because there's a Tesla in front of her that hasn't moved in a couple weeks. And there's a construction dumpster behind her.

Speaker 6 As she pulls into the spot in the middle lane that's across from where she is right now, she'll block the entire street.

Speaker 6 This kind of stuff happens all the time. And David knows how he sounds saying this, like some old guy at the park feeding the pigeons and complaining.
His words, not mine.

Speaker 6 But it really didn't used to be this way.

Speaker 20 Parking is: we grew up a certain way, we learned a certain way to how to handle yourself and to be,

Speaker 20 you know, courteous, look out for your family, your neighbors, or what everybody on your block was like family.

Speaker 6 Okay, and now, what is it?

Speaker 20 What is it now?

Speaker 26 I'm trying to think of a word.

Speaker 13 It's

Speaker 29 empty.

Speaker 6 Empty.

Speaker 20 God forbid there's an ambulance that's coming up. A fire truck, if there's a fire, you're just causing like such.

Speaker 20 Like, you know, you never know who has someone sick, who has an infant in their car that has to get home, who has appointments, serious stuff. You know, you never know who's having a bad day.

Speaker 6 In the last two years, David's had five family members die. Three of them lived here with David in this house on this block.
He took care of them, and it was a lot.

Speaker 20 You know, whether it's a nursing home, whether it's hospice, whether it's changing bandages or the oxygen machine, the condensation, you know, changing the ward, making sure there's water in the cup, bed sores,

Speaker 20 doctors back and forth to the hospital watching somebody die.

Speaker 6 I just think that there's like you are taking care of so much.

Speaker 6 Yes, you are, David. You're taking care of, okay, you were taking care of Joan.
You had your dad. Yeah.
Now you got your mom. You're taking care of the house.

Speaker 14 My aunt Phil, yeah.

Speaker 19 Your aunt Phil.

Speaker 13 It's just, listen.

Speaker 6 Wait, but wait, let me finish. I think

Speaker 6 there's so much things that are happening in the house. Like, I feel like I live in it, so I kind of see it.
Like, a lot of stuff's out of your control.

Speaker 6 But this parking thing, you're like, can we just get this right?

Speaker 20 Can you just notice it?

Speaker 20 It's something that's not hard.

Speaker 20 It's a neighborhood thing. It's a block thing.

Speaker 20 Just do the right thing, and everything falls into place.

Speaker 6 1145.

Speaker 6 We get out of the car to check on how the parking is going down the block. And immediately it's clear there's a problem.
There's a truck that can't get through with a growing line of cars behind it.

Speaker 6 No way the street cleaner is going to make it through here.

Speaker 20 It's going, it's three quarters of a block long.

Speaker 6 It's actually chaos. Like I'm looking right now, the parking, now everyone's going to start honking.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 20 There's cars backed up around the corner. You have, let's see, you have about 30 cars.

Speaker 13 The problem?

Speaker 6 On our block, a construction crew has left a barricade of giant plastic orange traffic barriers in the street to hold space for their dump truck.

Speaker 6 The barriers are on the street cleaning side, by the sidewalk, and near them, in the middle of the street, someone has parked their car no name no number on the dashboard there's no room for anyone to squeeze through

Speaker 6 you know this is crazy and i think i was taking up three spots not taking up three spots for a split moment david isn't sure what to do then a couple of their old-timers our neighbor bob and this guy kenny approach him and they huddle off to the side i look at them and back to the street Any minute now, and the honking will start.

Speaker 6 The chaos will ensue. It's tense.

Speaker 6 The three of them consider their options.

Speaker 6 Meaning, the barriers are going to be super heavy, like hundreds of pounds. But they got to try to do something anyway.

Speaker 6 So the three of them go over to the barriers, which are too heavy to lift, and try to drag them off the road.

Speaker 14 I put them in on as one.

Speaker 4 David, that looks pretty heavy.

Speaker 29 This is constructive vandalism.

Speaker 29 We're helping each other

Speaker 29 like local heroes. eh?

Speaker 6 It takes a while, but they manage to drag the barriers next to the lawn of the house undergoing construction.

Speaker 14 Now we have enough space.

Speaker 29 We have enough

Speaker 28 street there for one car.

Speaker 6 The truck is able to get through. The line of cars finally starts to move.
And then, after them, comes a street sweeper.

Speaker 6 Sweet, sweet victory.

Speaker 6 It swerves around the unmoved Tesla and the three other cars that no one cared to move, but makes it through nonetheless.

Speaker 6 There's no celebration, no moment of victory. David heads out to pick up his mom's meds, then he comes back to feed the birds, because he actually does that.

Speaker 6 In a bit, David gets in his car and moves it back to the left side of the road, checks to make sure I reparked mine correctly, that the others have two.

Speaker 6 The barriers will reappear overnight, except this time they'll take up more space. David, Bob, and Kenny will push them to the sidewalk again, and then again.

Speaker 6 The Tesla won't move, the neighbors will be late. Every week, the cycle will repeat itself.

Speaker 6 This little universe will break apart, and David will put it back together again.

Speaker 2 Valerie Kidness is a producer on our show.

Speaker 3 Act 5. It's been a hard year's night, and I've been working like a hog.

Speaker 2 So Bungstony Phil is not the only Groundhog who gets drafted into annual Groundhog Day ceremonies around the country.

Speaker 2 There's actually a website, groundhogday.com, that lists over three dozen of these poor critters around the United States and Canada. There's French Creek Freddie in West Virginia.

Speaker 2 Woody the Woodchuck in Michigan. There's a Groundhog in New York City at the Staten Island Zoo.

Speaker 2 In New York in the past, the city's mayor used to be part of the Groundhog ceremony until 2015 after Bill de Blasio dropped a Groundhog and died later that same week.

Speaker 2 The current mayor, Eric Adams, is a well-known rodent hater who launched a war on the city's rats, and he has never shown up in person to the ceremony.

Speaker 2 And as the man who runs the city, he could use his powers to try to shut down the Groundhog Day ceremony on Staten Island once and for all.

Speaker 2 And there's somebody out there who would like that very much. We are pleased to bring her to you now.
This is a This American Life exclusive. She's a resident of New York, specifically Staten Island.

Speaker 2 More specifically, the zoo.

Speaker 18 Dear Mayor Adams, I'm the groundhog. My name is Susan.
I'm nine years old. I have 48 children.
None of them are potty trained. All of them need braces.

Speaker 18 Their fathers are always digging and never helping.

Speaker 18 All eight of my nipples are unrecognizable. I haven't ever taken a shower.
And I'm at the end of my goddamn rope.

Speaker 18 You call it Groundhog Day, but have you ever considered what I, the Groundhog, actually want?

Speaker 18 Do you even know who I am besides some nameless creature you can foist in the air for a photo op?

Speaker 18 Do you have any idea what I sacrifice for you all?

Speaker 18 Because when I think about it, from the time I turned two and started having litters of tiny hairless babies, I have been expected every year to decide the fate of the northern hemisphere, of the planet.

Speaker 18 And not that you have time to even look it up between all your various staged perp walks, but I'm supposed to hibernate from October to April. From October to April.

Speaker 18 That's when the rest of my family sleeps, and it's supposed to be when I am finally able to get some some rest.

Speaker 18 Those months, I'm supposed to be out cold, like you, one Valium deep and a lay-flat business class seat on Turkish Airlines.

Speaker 18 Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to be me?

Speaker 18 48 children. And they all co-sleep, judge me, so I'm kicked by 192 tiny feet all night, every night.

Speaker 18 And yet, the first week of February, you and your mayor friends are going to yank me out of my burrow because, surprise, nobody knows how to do anything for five goddamn months without waking up mom.

Speaker 2 So, will there be six more weeks of winter?

Speaker 12 Did you see your shadow?

Speaker 18 Yeah,

Speaker 18 I see my shadow every time I look in a mirror because I am a shadow of my former self.

Speaker 18 They never even ask me if I saw it. They just kind of presume whether or not I saw my shadow based on whether I wrinkle my snout at the ground.

Speaker 18 This whole holiday, which is supposed to be about me, is predicated on a group of mouth-breathing men in top hats deciding whether or not I was capable of seeing my own shadow.

Speaker 18 And then they hold me up and shout in my face and then blind me with flash bulbs, but I don't feel seen at all.

Speaker 18 And I never get an apology. And I never get a thank you.

Speaker 18 And by the way, I want everyone to stop calling me a ground hog.

Speaker 5 A ground hog?

Speaker 18 That's not even a species. It's an insult.

Speaker 6 It's calling me dirt pig.

Speaker 18 Did you know in Canada I'm called a marmot? That's dignified. That's chic.

Speaker 18 That's apré squi.

Speaker 14 Okay,

Speaker 18 I hear myself. I know how I sound.
I sound exactly like my mother and her mother before her. I come from a proud line of groundhogs who have done this job year after year.

Speaker 18 And I'm not here to complain.

Speaker 18 No.

Speaker 18 Whatever I say, I know it's not going to make a difference. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 14 I can play my role.

Speaker 18 I can smile and go through the motions and for one February morning let you have a moment of pure escapism,

Speaker 18 however dumb and degrading and exhausting as it is for me.

Speaker 6 So go ahead.

Speaker 18 Play the trombones, unfurl your little scroll, and have your weird rodent fortune-telling pageant.

Speaker 18 Because you need it.

Speaker 18 so send in the clown and when you lift me your groundhog high into the air i will look into the crowd and see your vulnerable yearning human faces staring back at me standing out in the cold just desperate to see something that breaks up the gray monotony of your repetitive lives Trudging in your little puffer jackets, staring at your phones to go sit at a desk and eat a salad every day, and then you look up and there I am, the groundhog.

Speaker 18 When you cheer for me, you are cheering for your own hope that if this ridiculous tradition can endure, maybe you can too.

Speaker 18 May it be a happy Groundhog Day for us all.

Speaker 18 Sincerely, Susan Hogg Kaplowitz.

Speaker 2 Susan Hogg Kaplois' letter to Mayor Adams was written and read by Bess Kalb. She writes books and other funny stuff.
Her newsletter, which you can find on Substack, is The Grudge Report.

Speaker 2 I come close, but I never win. I'm stuck on the trip mill.

Speaker 2 Another day of punching steel. Two miles too numb to feel.
Like a hamster on a wheel. I'm stuck on a trip mill.

Speaker 2 Well, programmes produced today by Aviva de Kornfeld.

Speaker 2 The people who put together today's program include Bim Adawummi, Jindayi Bonds, Dana Chivis, Michael Kamede, Angelo Gravasi, Khana Jaffe Walt, Tobin Lowe, Miki Neek, Catherine Raymondo, Storm Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rummery, Lily Sullivan, Francis Swanson, Christopher Swatala, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu.

Speaker 2 Our managing editor is Sarah Abduraman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum.
Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry.

Speaker 2 Special thanks today to Kerry Rose Thiessen, Ethan Brooks, Eddie Wong, Lindy Wade DeLamini, Saudi Tuccada, Avery Truffleman, and Ned Ryerson.

Speaker 2 This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange, to become a This American Life Partner.

Speaker 2 It gets you bonus episodes, it gets you ad-free listening, it gets you hundreds of greatest hits episodes that show up right in your podcast feed. Go to thisamericanlife.org/slash life partners.

Speaker 2 Also, very important. Signing up this way also helps keep our program going.
Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia.
You know, he is not a very good dance teacher.

Speaker 20 You go there, you go here. With you going there, you're going to make it easier for him to pull over there.
He's going to come out now, he's going to pull behind you, and everything works.

Speaker 13 I'm Ira Glass.

Speaker 2 Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

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