An area in Florida - Let us Cheer the Lowly Possum
An area in Florida - Let us Cheer the Lowly Possum
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There's a area in Florida that crafted a 12-foot-higher monument in the guts of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would any individual would like to perform that?
Very well, to begin, heroes are hard to study with this spot in Florida - the Panhandle city of Wausau, home of less than five hundred folks in the middle of Washington County about ten miles south of Chipley.
Why not the possum, an unlikely hero as you would count on? No one else puts the possum about the pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Next, in 1982, Wausau bought fed up with remaining overlooked on the Florida lists of fun, fairs and festivals. Each and every position in Florida desires a Pageant. Instead of just one commit Florida includes a Possum Pageant. Why not Wausau?
If you have never been to Washington County, you probably will Feel I am Therefore, making this up. For those who have absent to Washington County, you are going to fully grasp - and know this can be a accurate story.
Wausau, it turned out, had some very impressive possum politicians through the early '80s. Allow me to share several items they accomplished:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the initial Saturday in August as Possum Day in Florida. That led for the creating from the monument along Condition Freeway 77 in Wausau.
They even acquired the United States Congress to publicize the possum. Congress joined the enjoyment by delivering the funds for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau could possibly have an area to maintain its once-a-year Fun Working day and Possum Pageant. That includes a queen contest and possum auction, between other points, the Competition draws in Many of us every year, and so they love it.
Day trip For numerous educating of Northerners right here. The South's possum would be the equivalent lowly animal you contact opossum, (Why use seven letters when six will almost certainly do?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and demonstrates its ugly entire body only in the evening. This is why, In case you are inside of right location in Florida, you may hear possum hunters' canines baying and barking. Treed by dogs, the possum 'freezes', consequently it's not so complicated seize (or shoot) a single.
An inscription for that monument in the course of Wausau cites the possum's role in offering 'both of those fur and meals' through the hundreds of years. It goes website onto say: 'Their presence here has provided a resource of nutritious and flavorful foodstuff in standard instances and it's been An important aid to human survival when in distress and demanding have to have.'
Giggle if you want. The folks of Wausau will snicker along with you - when downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.