A Place in Florida - Let us Cheer the Lowly Possum
A Place in Florida - Let us Cheer the Lowly Possum
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There's a make investments Florida that developed a twelve-foot-higher monument in the middle of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would any individual need to do that?
Effectively, to start with, heroes take effort and time to receive On this make investments Florida - the Panhandle city of Wausau, property of fewer than 500 persons in the guts of Washington County about 10 miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero as you would probably hope? Nobody else puts the possum using a pedestal. Why don't you Wausau?
Next, last 1982, Wausau acquired fed up with currently being ignored Together with the Florida lists of entertaining, fairs and festivals. Each and every place in position Florida demands a Pageant. And never one particular spot in Florida features a Possum Pageant. Why not Wausau?
If you haven't absent to Washington County, you most likely will Feel I am Consequently, creating this up. Should you have attended Washington County, you are going to realize - and know this can be a correct Tale.
Wausau, it wound up, had some really highly effective possum politicians in the course of the early '80s. Here's a handful of points they attained:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the Original Saturday in August as Possum Day in Florida. That led to the building through the monument along Point out Highway 77 in Wausau.
They even received the United States Congress to market the possum. Congress joined the entertaining by giving the funds for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau could have a location to keep its once-a-year Entertaining Day and Possum Pageant. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, among other issues, the Competition appeals to A huge number of individuals every year, and Additionally they like it.
Trip for a few educating of Northerners below. The South's possum would be the similar lowly animal you get in touch with opossum, (Why use seven letters when 6 can do?) It is check here a smallish marsupial that life in trees and displays its hideous entire body only at nighttime. That's why, when you're In the appropriate place in Florida, you may listen to possum hunters' canines baying and barking. Treed by puppies, the possum 'freezes', so it's straightforward to catch (or shoot) just one.
An inscription around the monument in the heart of Wausau cites the possum's role in providing 'both of those fur and foodstuff' in the hundreds of years. It goes to say: 'Their presence listed here has furnished an origin of nutritious and flavorful food items in normal instances and has been An important enable to human survival throughout instances of distress and significant will need.'
Chortle if you prefer. The persons of Wausau will giggle together with you - while downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.