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 invest Florida that built a twelve-foot-superior monument in the center of city to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would any one might like to do that?
Well, to start out, heroes are hard to return by With this set in position Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, household of less than 500 folks in the middle of Washington County about 10 miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero understandably? No person else places the possum about the pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Secondly, in 1982, Wausau bought fed up with staying ignored in the Florida lists of fun, fairs and festivals. Each place in Florida wishes a festival. Rather than a single put in Florida includes a Possum Competition. Why don't you Wausau?
If you have not gone to Washington County, you most likely will Assume I am thus, generating this up. Should you have gone to Washington County, you will realize - and know this can be a real Tale.
Wausau, it proved, experienced some quite effective possum politicians during the early '80s. Here are two items they attained:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the 1st Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led to the making of the monument alongside Point out Highway 77 in Wausau.
They even obtained The usa Congress to promote the possum. Congress Possum removal Brighton joined the entertaining by offering the money for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau may need an area to hold its yearly Entertaining Day and Possum Competition. Showcasing a queen contest and possum auction, amongst other items, the Pageant attracts A large number of individuals each year, and so they like it.
Day trip For a lot of educating of Northerners in this article. The South's possum is the same lowly animal you phone opossum, (Why use seven letters when six will carry out?) It is a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and reveals its unattractive human body only at nighttime. That's why, when you are while in the suitable spend Florida, you can hear possum hunters' dogs baying and barking. Treed by canines, the possum 'freezes', thus it is actually not tricky to lure (or shoot) just one.
An inscription about the monument during Wausau cites the possum's position in providing 'both fur and food items' through the hundreds of years. It goes on say: 'Their presence right here has offered a source of nutritious and flavorful food stuff in ordinary situations and incorporates been an important help to human survival when in distress and demanding have to have.'
Laugh when you'd like. The men and women of Wausau will chortle along with you - when downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.