A spot in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
A spot in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
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There is a place in Florida that created a twelve-foot-higher monument in the center of city to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would anyone could possibly love to do that?
Effectively, to start with, heroes are challenging to return by using this devote Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, home of fewer than five hundred folks in the heart of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why not the possum, an not likely hero To place it mildly? No one else places the possum which has a pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Secondly, again in 1982, Wausau obtained Ill and Sick and tired of staying overlooked from the Florida lists of entertaining, fairs and festivals. Each and every place in Florida demands a Pageant. And not one spot in Florida includes a Possum Competition. Why don't you Wausau?
If you haven't attended Washington County, you almost certainly will Assume I'm generating this up. If you have visited Washington County, you can recognize - and know This is actually the correct story.
Wausau, it ended up, had some rather highly effective possum politicians in the early '80s. Here's two factors they attained:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the 1st Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led for the building with the monument along Condition Highway seventy seven in Wausau.
They even bought the United States Congress to current market the possum. Congress joined the exciting by the funds for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau might have a spot to carry its once-a-year Enjoyable Working day and Possum Pageant. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, among the other factors, the Competition draws in Lots of individuals yearly, and Additionally they find it irresistible.
Trip for some educating of Northerners in this article. The South's possum is similar lowly animal you call opossum, (Why use 7 letters when 6 will do?) It is a smallish marsupial that life in trees and reveals its unpleasant overall body only at night. That is why, if you're In the correct commit Florida, you can listen to possum hunters' pet dogs baying and barking. Treed by pet dogs, the possum 'freezes', hence it is actually easy capture (or shoot) 1.
An inscription for your monument during Wausau cites the possum's position in furnishing 'equally fur and food stuff' throughout the centuries. It goes on say: 'Their more info presence in this article has offered an origin of nutritious and flavorful food in standard instances and includes been a crucial aid to human survival for the duration of times of distress and important need to have.'
Laugh If you need. The people of Wausau will chuckle as well as you - when downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.