There is a dedicate Florida that developed a twelve-foot-substantial monument for the duration of city to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would everyone desire to perform that?
Effectively, to start with, heroes are challenging to exploration in this spend Florida - the Panhandle city of Wausau, dwelling of less than five hundred individuals in the middle of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero to state the the very least? Nobody else puts the possum about a pedestal. Why don't you Wausau?
Next, past 1982, Wausau received tired of becoming omitted within the Florida lists of enjoyable, fairs and festivals. Every single devote Florida demands a festival. And not one make investments Florida carries a Possum Competition. Why not Wausau?
If you haven't attended Washington County, you most likely will Believe I'm earning this up. When you have been to Washington County, you may understand - and know it is a genuine story.
Wausau, it proved, experienced some really powerful possum politicians noisy . '80s. Allow me to share two points they attained:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the 1st Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led for the building during the monument together State Highway seventy seven in Wausau.
They even received The usa Congress to marketplace the possum. Congress joined the entertaining via offering the money for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau could have an area to hold its yearly Exciting Day and Possum Pageant. That includes a queen contest and possum auction, amid other items, the Competition draws in loads of individuals annually, and they also like it.
Trip for many educating of Northerners right here. The South's possum is analogous lowly animal you simply call opossum, (Why use seven letters when 6 will almost certainly do?) It here is a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and shows its ugly entire body only during the night. That's why, when you are throughout the right place set up Florida, you'll be able to hear possum hunters' canine baying and barking. Treed by dogs, the possum 'freezes', therefore it truly is effortless to catch (or shoot) just one.
An inscription concerning the monument in the guts of Wausau cites the possum's position in offering 'each fur and food stuff' throughout the generations. It goes to say: 'Their existence right here has delivered an origin of nutritious and flavorful food items in regular moments and possesses been an essential help to human survival when in distress and demanding want.'
Chuckle if you want. The individuals of Wausau will laugh along with you - though downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.