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's a devote Florida that built a 12-foot-superior monument all through city to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would anybody should do that?
Well, very first off, heroes are tough to find inside this commit Florida - the Panhandle metropolis of Wausau, property of below 500 folks in the guts of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero to say the minimum? No person else places the possum on the pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Next, again in 1982, Wausau got tired of currently being overlooked of your Florida lists of entertaining, fairs and festivals. Every single set in place Florida would like a Competition. Instead of one make investments Florida includes a Possum Festival. Why not Wausau?
If you have not been to Washington County, you almost certainly will Feel I'm creating this up. Should you have attended Washington County, you can fully grasp - and know This is a legitimate story.
Wausau, it turned out, experienced some quite impressive possum politicians from the early '80s. Here are a pair of factors they completed:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the First Saturday in August as Possum Day in Florida. That led for the constructing with the monument together Condition Freeway seventy seven in Wausau.
They even acquired the United States Congress to industry the possum. Congress joined the enjoyable by offering the cash for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau would have a place to guidance its once-a-year Entertaining Working day and Possum Pageant. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, among the other items, the Pageant draws in plenty of individuals annually, and in order that they like it.
Time out to get a couple educating of Northerners listed here. The South's possum may be the equivalent lowly here animal you contact opossum, (Why use 7 letters when 6 will do?) It is a smallish marsupial that life in trees and exhibits its unattractive physique only in the evening. That's why, In case you are inside of right location in Florida, you are able to hear possum hunters' dogs baying and barking. Treed by pet dogs, the possum 'freezes', so it is actually straightforward to capture (or shoot) 1.
An inscription over the monument in the middle of Wausau cites the possum's job in offering 'equally fur and food stuff' from the overall centuries. It goes to say: 'Their presence here has supplied a useful resource of nutritious and flavorful food stuff in ordinary situations and possesses been a crucial support to human survival in the course of times of distress and important will need.'
Chuckle if you love. The persons of Wausau will chuckle together with you - even though downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.