A location in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
A location in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
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There's a place in Florida that developed a twelve-foot-high monument in the center of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would everyone really need to do that?
Perfectly, to get started with, heroes are hard to seek out inside this put in Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, household of under 500 people in the center of Washington County about 10 miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an not likely hero to mention the least? No person else puts the possum which has a pedestal. Why don't you Wausau?
Secondly, back again 1982, Wausau bought fed up with staying neglected within the Florida lists of fun, fairs and festivals. Each individual make investments Florida requires a Competition. And not a person put in place Florida features a Possum Competition. Why not Wausau?
If you haven't visited Washington County, you most likely will Believe I am generating this up. If you have gone to Washington County, you'll realize - and know that is a accurate story.
Wausau, it wound up, experienced some rather highly effective possum politicians inside the early '80s. Here are a pair of matters they completed:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the very first Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led to the making Along with the monument alongside Condition Freeway seventy seven in Wausau.
They even bought the United States Congress read more to promote the possum. Congress joined the pleasurable by supplying the funds for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau would have a place to carry its annual Fun Working day and Possum Pageant. That includes a queen contest and possum auction, amongst other issues, the Competition draws in A lot of people annually, and so that they discover it irresistible.
Trip for a few educating of Northerners listed here. The South's possum is identical lowly animal you simply call opossum, (Why use 7 letters when six can perform?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and displays its unappealing physique only at nighttime. This is why, when you end up within the correct location in Florida, you could listen to possum hunters' canine baying and barking. Treed by canine, the possum 'freezes', hence it is actually not so tricky to hook (or shoot) a single.
An inscription for the monument in the midst of Wausau cites the possum's job in delivering 'each fur and food stuff' all over the hundreds of years. It goes on to say: 'Their presence listed here has delivered a supply of nutritious and flavorful food in typical periods and it's got been A necessary help to human survival when in distress and critical require.'
Chuckle If you'd like. The folks of Wausau will giggle in addition to you - when downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.