Groundhog Day’s central event came and went Monday without too much of a blip on the national radar screen. Thanks to Malcolm Butler’s improbable interception, the Seahawks left the desert feeling as deflated as the game balls some said were a bit light two weeks ago.

But, the old and new definitions of the day abounded for those like me tasked with looking around for these things.

Punxsutawney Phil, that famed furry rodent from Pennsylvania, saw his shadow for what record-keepers say is the 102nd time since 1887, meaning six more weeks of winter. I know personally a small handful of people in the Northeast who don’t need a gussied-up rat and an old German legend to tell them that. Who sees their shadow when the sun’s not out anyway?

The holiday was essentially re-branded in 1993 with the film “Groundhog Day”, starring Bill Murray as a TV weatherman who keeps reliving the same day over and over again. Instead of rats and shadows, the name became a buzz-phrase for witnessing or experiencing the same event or situation daily without escape.

It’s a theme that showed in the team colors you might have seen Sunday night. The Seahawks were  in the big game just last year and the Patriots were in their sixth title game in 14 seasons — the most prolific stretch of attendance in Super Bowl history. Each team is now a familiar sight, n’est pas?

In the Beltway, I can tell the two major parties are in a time loop of their own.

President Barack Obama has proposed a big-time fix for the nation’s roads, bridges, trains and other vehicles of movement, to the tune of $478 billion. It comes with higher taxes on upper-income wage earners and helping out the upside-down Highway Trust Fund with a one-time mandatory tax on money earned by U.S. companies overseas. Ah, but any plan to fund needed upgrades to transportation is the “politics of envy,” said U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, who chairs Ways and Means, in a wire story over the weekend. Whether those who wear suits and ties to work or fire-resistant welder’s denim should foot the bill is as redundant an episode in politics as anything. Stay tuned for any winners there.

On a local note, driving habits in Vicksburg don’t seem to change from day to day, particularly when I’m behind the wheel. It’s apparently Groundhog Day every day along 61 South’s feeder roads, as drivers routinely pull into the main drag going maybe 25 mph. I have somewhere fairly important to go at either 6:45 or 7:45 each morning, and it’s not the molasses factory, people.

Ah, do I have to kidnap the rat and kiss the news producer in the snow like Murray did for this madness to end?

•

Danny Barrett Jr. is a reporter and can be reached by email at danny.barrett@vicksburgpost.com or by phone at 601-636-4545.