A location in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
A location in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
Blog Article
There is a place set up Florida that developed a twelve-foot-high monument in the center of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would any one need to do that?
Effectively, to start, heroes acquire effort and time to come back by on this put set up Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, property of under five hundred individuals in the middle of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why not the possum, an not likely hero to mention the the very least? No one else places the possum in excess of a pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Next, again 1982, Wausau obtained fed up with being overlooked within the Florida lists of enjoyable, fairs and festivals. Each individual place in position Florida requires a festival. Instead of 1 area in Florida carries a Possum Festival. Why don't you Wausau?
If you've got never attended Washington County, you probably will Feel I'm producing this up. When you've got been to Washington County, you will comprehend - and know This is a true Tale.
Wausau, it turned out, experienced some quite powerful possum politicians throughout the early '80s. Here i will discuss two or three items they completed:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the 1st Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led to your making from the monument alongside Condition Highway 77 in Wausau.
They even acquired The us Congress in promoting the possum. Congress joined the enjoyable by providing the money for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau may have a location to maintain its once-a-year Enjoyment Day and Possum Competition. Showcasing a queen contest and possum auction, among other items, the festival attracts Lots of individuals each and every year, and so they adore it.
Day trip for lots of educating of Northerners in this article. The South's possum is comparable lowly animal you connect with opossum, (Why use 7 letters when 6 will perform?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and demonstrates its ugly human body only in the evening. That's why, when you're in the ideal spend Florida, you could listen to possum hunters' puppies baying and barking. Treed by dogs, the possum 'freezes', so it will be not hard to capture (or shoot) one particular.
An inscription across the monument in the course of Wausau cites the possum's part in supplying 'equally fur and food' throughout the hundreds of years. It goes to say: 'Their get more info presence here has offered an origin of nutritious and flavorful food in ordinary periods and it has been A vital assist to human survival through times of distress and important need to have.'
Chuckle If you need. The individuals of Wausau will chortle with you - even though downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.