OCEAN CITY – Simply put, it was easier to believe Martin Z. Mollusk this year.
On Friday, a warm and sunny day during which a few souls were wearing bathing suits on the beach, the little hermit crab was looking for its shadow to prognosticate the early arrival of summer in America’s Greatest Family Resort.
This same time last year, when the results were predictably the same, the media throng and spectators who watched the crab were standing by the Music Pier, shivering under gray skies with chilly gusting winds.
It doesn’t matter.
Every year Martin sees his shadow and predicts summer will come a week early. That has happened for 52 years in a row.
City officials put the little crab onto the sand or a small blanket and wait to see if the crab-shell cutie casts his miniature penumbra. It happened in the sunshine Friday, May 2, and it happened last year when it was overcast.
It also happened the year rains forced the ceremony inside. A flashlight helped.
The annual event, an homage to Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania predictor of the end of winter and coming of spring, was the brainchild of longtime Ocean City publicist Mark Soifer, whose wit, wisdom and wonderful sense of humor were used to bring positive attention to the resort.
Last week, the Cape Shore Chorus Sweet Adelines sang, the String Band Novelties strummed, Martin Z. and Molly Mollusk mascots marched onto the beach and Ocean City’s crown-heads – Miss Ocean City Taylor Mulford, Junior Miss Sarah Smith and Little Miss Taegen Vivarelli – added their touch of royalty to the ceremony.
An Ocean City firefighter checked the crab’s vitals and declared the crustacean fit as a fiddler crab.
A real weather forecaster, Nor’easter Nick Pittman, was the honorary emcee of the event and declared the obvious – Martin Z. Mollusk saw his shadow.
Summer will indeed arrive a week early in the resort.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
