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 devote Florida that built a 12-foot-superior monument all through city to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would any person need to do that?
Well, initially off, heroes just take effort and time to receive inside of this area in Florida - the Panhandle city of Wausau, property of underneath 500 people in the guts of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero understandably? No person else places the possum which has a pedestal. Why don't you Wausau?
Next, in 1982, Wausau received Bored with being left out in the Florida lists of fun, fairs and festivals. Every invest Florida demands a Competition. And not a person put in position Florida includes a Possum Pageant. Why not Wausau?
If you've got in no way attended Washington County, you most likely will Believe I'm generating this up. Should you have been to Washington County, you will comprehend - and know This can be the correct Tale.
Wausau, it turned out, had some fairly powerful possum politicians over the early '80s. Listed here are two issues they accomplished:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the initial Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led to the creating with the monument along Point out Highway 77 in Wausau.
They even received America Congress to market the possum. Congress joined the fun by the money for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau could have a location to hold its yearly Fun Day and Possum Festival. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, amid other items, the Pageant attracts Lots of people each and every year, furthermore they adore it.
Trip for any couple of educating of website Northerners here. The South's possum would be the similar lowly animal you call opossum, (Why use 7 letters when six can do?) It's a smallish marsupial that life in trees and demonstrates its unappealing system only at night. This is why, once you end up In the ideal devote Florida, you can hear possum hunters' canines baying and barking. Treed by puppies, the possum 'freezes', so it truly is simple sufficient to catch (or shoot) a single.
An inscription with the monument in the heart of Wausau cites the possum's part in furnishing 'the two fur and food stuff' throughout the full hundreds of years. It goes on to say: 'Their existence here has furnished an origin of nutritious and flavorful food stuff in standard times and it has been a vital support to human survival in occasions of distress and critical need.'
Laugh in case you'd prefer. The persons of Wausau will laugh with you - whilst downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.