There's a devote Florida that constructed a twelve-foot-high monument for the duration of city to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would any person really need to do that?
Nicely, to start with, heroes are tough to obtain with this position in Florida - the Panhandle city of Wausau, house of fewer than 500 folks in the middle of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero To place it mildly? Nobody else places the possum more than a pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Next, back again 1982, Wausau acquired Ill and Bored with getting ignored Using the Florida lists of pleasurable, fairs and festivals. Every spend Florida demands a festival. Instead of one particular place in Florida has a Possum Festival. Why not Wausau?
If you have never absent to Washington County, you most likely will Believe I'm making this up. When you've got visited Washington County, you can recognize - and know this can be a correct Tale.
Wausau, it proved, had some quite impressive possum politicians through the early '80s. Listed below are a few factors they attained:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the very first Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led on the building inside the monument together Point out Highway seventy seven in Wausau.
They even acquired The us Congress to advertise the possum. Congress joined the exciting by the cash for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau may have a place to help keep its once-a-year Fun Day and Possum Festival. That includes a queen contest and possum auction, amid other factors, the Pageant draws in Lots of people annually, and Additionally they like it.
Time out for a couple educating of Northerners listed here. The South's possum would be the equivalent lowly animal check here you phone opossum, (Why use 7 letters when 6 will probably do?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and reveals its unpleasant system only at nighttime. This is exactly why, if you are inside proper area in Florida, you'll be able to hear possum hunters' pet dogs baying and barking. Treed by pet dogs, the possum 'freezes', therefore it is not so tricky seize (or shoot) a single.
An inscription to the monument in the course of Wausau cites the possum's function in delivering 'both fur and foodstuff' throughout the hundreds of years. It goes onto say: 'Their presence here has supplied a source of nutritious and flavorful food in normal times and it's been An important assist to human survival when in distress and demanding need.'
Chortle If you prefer. The people today of Wausau will giggle together with you - though downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.