There's a set in position Florida that constructed a 12-foot-high monument in the middle of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would any individual must do that?
Effectively, to start with, heroes are hard to have During this commit Florida - the Panhandle city of Wausau, dwelling of under five hundred folks in the center of Washington County about 10 miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero understandably? No person else puts the possum over a pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Secondly, back 1982, Wausau received fed up with getting disregarded from the Florida lists of pleasurable, fairs and festivals. Each area in Florida wants a Competition. Instead of one location in Florida incorporates a Possum Pageant. Why not Wausau?
If you haven't absent to Washington County, you probably will Feel I'm making this up. In case you have visited Washington County, you can expect to have an understanding of - and know that is a legitimate story.
Wausau, it proved, had some fairly powerful possum politicians during the early '80s. Listed below are two or three factors they accomplished:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the extremely to start with Saturday in August as Possum Day in read more Florida. That led into the creating from your monument alongside Condition Freeway seventy seven in Wausau.
They even bought the United States Congress in advertising the possum. Congress joined the exciting through offering the money for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau might have an area to hold its yearly Exciting Day and Possum Competition. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, among the other matters, the festival appeals to Many of us annually, and so they adore it.
Day trip for some educating of Northerners listed here. The South's possum is equivalent lowly animal you connect with opossum, (Why use seven letters when 6 can perform?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and demonstrates its unappealing body only in the evening. This is exactly why, when you're during the appropriate devote Florida, you are able to listen to possum hunters' canine baying and barking. Treed by canine, the possum 'freezes', therefore it's uncomplicated to catch (or shoot) a person.
An inscription within the monument in the middle of Wausau cites the possum's part in furnishing 'each fur and food items' through the centuries. It goes on say: 'Their presence here has presented a source of nutritious and flavorful food in normal situations and it's got been an essential help to human survival when in distress and critical need.'
Laugh If you prefer. The men and women of Wausau will snicker together with you - although downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.