A location in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
A location in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
Blog Article
There is a set in place Florida that crafted a 12-foot-large monument all through town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would any person wish to perform that?
Well, very first off, heroes consider time and effort to get inside of this devote Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, property of less than five hundred individuals in the heart of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why not the possum, an not likely hero To place it mildly? Nobody else puts the possum that has a pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Secondly, in 1982, Wausau received sick and worn out with getting ignored within the Florida lists of pleasurable, fairs and festivals. Every put in place Florida wants a Competition. Instead of 1 dedicate Florida carries a Possum Pageant. Why not Wausau?
If you've in no way long gone to Washington County, you almost certainly will Assume I am generating this up. In case you have frequented Washington County, you can expect to realize - and know This is actually the correct story.
Wausau, it turned out, had some very powerful possum politicians in the course of the early '80s. Allow me to share two things they attained:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the very 1st Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led towards the developing While using the monument along Condition Highway seventy seven in Wausau.
They even acquired the United States Congress in endorsing the possum. Congress joined the enjoyable as a result of supplying the funds for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau could have a place to help its annual Entertaining Day and Possum Competition. That includes a queen contest and possum auction, amid other factors, the festival attracts thousands of people Every single and each and every year, and in order that they adore it.
Trip for lots of educating of Northerners right here. The South's possum is the same lowly animal you contact opossum, (Why use 7 letters when 6 will do?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and reveals its hideous human body only in the evening. This is why, once you end up from the ideal devote Florida, you are able to listen to possum hunters' puppies baying and barking. Treed by canine, the possum 'freezes', so it is not so hard seize (or shoot) a single.
An inscription for the monument in the center of Wausau cites the possum's purpose in furnishing 'equally fur and food stuff' from the centuries. It goes on to say: 'Their existence more info in this article has provided an origin of nutritious and flavorful food in standard situations and it has been an essential assist to human survival in the course of occasions of distress and demanding require.'
Chuckle in the event you'd want. The people of Wausau will snicker with you - whilst downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.