Is it wrong to pity the groundhog?
I spent my first few years on St. Peter’s Church Road learning to hate the hairy, low-slung varmints. I armed myself against them. I reacquainted myself with the art of shooting. My practice targets were printed with enemy groundhogs whose gimlet eyes seemed to suggest they were coming for my wife — right after the giant sinkhole was done, the one that would swallow our house whole.
I’m not proud to say that I’ve dispatched my share of the creatures. I’ve treated varminting as a fact of life in Perry County: it’s either them, or me.
At first, I’ll admit there was an element of excitement to deleting a groundhog. I’m not a big hunter, but there was stealth involved, and skill, a pitting of man against beast. Which is not to say that man always had an advantage, despite his fancy rifle chambered in .243, with that sweet, sweet scope…
Nature gave the groundhog good defensive skills, including one of the very best: the ability to stay underground a really long time.
Months, even.
My ardor for assassinating groundhogs has cooled lately. Maybe it’s all the bad weather we’ve been having. Entire weeks have gone by this winter when the Olshans have been holed up in our lair, what with school and work closures, snow-bound roads, and icy sidewalks. We’ve despaired of getting to the store for a carton of milk, much less exercising our God-given right as primates to hit the open road.
Ah, to roam!
On the other hand, being snowed in does have its advantages, so long as the power stays on and everybody eats sugar in moderation. There’s a kind of family coziness that’s hard to replicate in the summer months.
Living in an affectionate heap is something groundhogs know a thing or two about. But they don’t have to worry about driving each other crazy with boredom. If things get slow, they can always go to the den and nap for a month or two.
I’ve heard that Elvis liked to indulge in a light coma every once in a while to shave off a few pounds. But for non-hibernators like me, Google has just made being snowed in a little more interesting. Last week, they introduced the latest in a series of world-changing internet innovations: the Google Art Project, which you can check out at www.googleartproject.com.
Using the same technology that brought you Street View, the overlay to Google Maps that lets you see actual photographs of just about any address you type in, visitors to the Art Project can take virtual tours of some of the world’s greatest museums.
Without risking frostbite or a bruised tailbone, you can now stroll the halls of, say, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Feel free to stop anywhere you like. Tilt your gaze up and down. In fact, spin around in place if you feel like it. Along the way, you’ll be able to zoom in on selected pieces of art. And I do mean zoom in. These artworks have been photographed at a resolution about a thousand times better than the average digital camera. Individual brushstrokes? Bah, piece of cake. What’s really cool is to see the weave of the canvas underneath!
Don’t like the Met? Okay. Take your pick of international gems: the Uffizi Gallery of Florence; the Tate Britain; the Van Gogh Museum of Amsterdam.
You won’t be able to see every gallery in every museum thanks to copyright issues. And not every painting is zoomable, if that’s even a word.
Even so, Google’s Art Project is an incredible resource, and a perfectly defensible way to while away quiet winter hours.
And yes — to answer a question that may have occurred to you — these virtual tours are ideal for scoping out a security system. Shana and I had some fun the other day spotting cameras in the Van Gogh Museum.
If you happen to beat us to the heist, please do us a favor and leave “Flowering plum tree (after Hiroshige).”
We think it’ll look great over the green sofa in the living room.
This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 10 February 2011
For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com
