A Place in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
A Place in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
Blog Article
There is a place in Florida that developed a 12-foot-significant monument all through city to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would any one could possibly love to do that?
Well, to get started on, heroes are really hard to investigate on this commit Florida - the Panhandle city of Wausau, property of under five hundred persons in the midst of Washington County about 10 miles south of Chipley.
Why not the possum, an unlikely hero to put it mildly? No one else puts the possum on the pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Next, in 1982, Wausau bought tired of currently being omitted with the Florida lists of pleasurable, fairs and festivals. Each and every put in place Florida desires a Pageant. Rather than one spot in Florida features a Possum Festival. Why don't you Wausau?
If you have not attended Washington County, you most likely will Imagine I am causeing this being up. When you have absent to Washington County, you may recognize - and know this is the legitimate story.
Wausau, it proved, experienced some pretty potent possum politicians during the early '80s. Allow me to share certain things they attained:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the main Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led for the constructing in the monument alongside Point out Highway seventy seven in Wausau.
They even obtained the United States Congress to market the possum. Congress joined the fun by the money for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau could have a spot to keep its once-a-year Enjoyable Day and Possum Festival. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, amongst other points, the Competition attracts tons of people each year, furthermore they love it.
Outing for some educating of Northerners below. The South's possum is the equivalent lowly animal you contact opossum, (Why use seven letters when 6 will do?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and displays its unattractive system only at nighttime. That is why, If you're during the appropriate spend Florida, you are able to listen to possum hunters' canines baying and barking. Treed by pet dogs, the possum 'freezes', consequently it can be uncomplicated more than enough to entice (or shoot) a person.
An inscription concerning the monument in the center of Wausau cites the possum's position in giving 'both of those fur and food stuff' in the overall centuries. It here goes on say: 'Their presence here has delivered an origin of nutritious and flavorful foods in ordinary moments and possesses been A vital enable to human survival when in distress and demanding want.'
Giggle if you prefer. The people of Wausau will laugh along with you - while downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.