A Place in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
A Place in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
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There is a commit Florida that designed a 12-foot-superior monument in the heart of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would anyone have to do that?
Nicely, to start with, heroes take effort and time to obtain within just this position in Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, home of less than 500 individuals in the center of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why not the possum, an not likely hero as you would probably count on? Nobody else puts the possum over a pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Secondly, very last 1982, Wausau received fed up with being ignored of your Florida lists of fun, fairs and festivals. Every invest Florida desires a Competition. Instead of one particular put in position Florida includes a Possum Competition. Why not Wausau?
If you have not frequented Washington County, you almost certainly will Assume I'm earning this up. When you have absent to Washington County, you'll recognize - and know This can be the true Tale.
Wausau, it proved, experienced some pretty effective possum politicians from the early '80s. Allow me to share certain things they accomplished:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the initial Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led on the constructing With all the monument together Point out Highway 77 in Wausau.
They even bought The us Congress to market the possum. Congress joined the pleasurable by offering the resources for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau might have an area to maintain its once-a-year Enjoyment Working day and Possum Pageant. That includes a queen contest and possum auction, amid other points, the Pageant draws in A lot of people every year, moreover they adore it.
Outing for a great deal of educating of Northerners right here. The South's possum is identical lowly animal you phone opossum, (Why use 7 letters when six will probably do?) It is a smallish marsupial that life in trees and displays its ugly entire body only at night. This is why, if you are within ideal set in position Florida, you can listen to possum hunters' canines baying and barking. Treed by canines, the possum 'freezes', so It really is not tough to capture (or shoot) one particular.
An inscription across the monument in the center of Wausau cites the possum's function in furnishing 'equally fur and meals' in the total generations. It goes to say: 'Their presence below has supplied a source of nutritious and flavorful food in typical periods and includes been a substantial support to human survival in the course of moments of distress and important need.'
Laugh should you'd choose. The folks of Wausau will chuckle along with you - even though here downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.