There is a devote Florida that created a twelve-foot-superior monument in the guts of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would anybody wish to perform that?
Nicely, to get started on, heroes are really hard to uncover on this invest Florida - the Panhandle city of Wausau, household of less than 500 folks in the midst 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 in excess of a pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Secondly, back 1982, Wausau bought fed up with currently being ignored through the Florida lists of pleasurable, fairs and festivals. Every place in place Florida would like a Pageant. And not a person devote Florida encompasses a Possum Pageant. Why don't you Wausau?
If you have not attended Washington County, you probably will think I'm So, generating this up. For those who have long gone to Washington County, you are going to have an understanding of - and know This may be a real story.
Wausau, it turned out, had some rather highly effective possum politicians noisy . '80s. Here's two things they achieved:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the pretty to start with Saturday in August as Possum Day in Florida. That led into the setting up Together with the monument along Condition Freeway 77 in Wausau.
They even bought The usa Congress to market the possum. Congress joined the fun as a result of offering the cash for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau could have a locale to hold its once-a-year Fun Working day and Possum Pageant. That includes a queen contest and possum auction, amid other factors, the Competition draws in Many of us on a yearly basis, and so they like it.
Trip for loads of educating of Northerners right here. The South's possum may be the similar lowly animal you call opossum, (Why use 7 letters when 6 is going to do?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and exhibits its unattractive system only during the night. That is why, here if you are inside correct location in Florida, you'll be able to listen to possum hunters' puppies baying and barking. Treed by canines, the possum 'freezes', consequently it is actually not so hard to hook (or shoot) 1.
An inscription for that monument in the course of Wausau cites the possum's purpose in providing 'each fur and foodstuff' with the hundreds of years. It goes onto say: 'Their existence right here has furnished a supply of nutritious and flavorful foodstuff in usual periods and it's got been A necessary aid to human survival in instances of distress and important have to have.'
Giggle if you like. The people today of Wausau will snicker with you - while downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.