There is a dedicate Florida that built a 12-foot-superior monument in the heart of town to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would everyone could love to do that?
Nicely, to begin, heroes are really hard to discover with this devote Florida - the Panhandle town of Wausau, household of a lot less than 500 folks throughout Washington County about 10 miles south of Chipley.
Why don't you the possum, an unlikely hero to put it mildly? No person else puts the possum that has a pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Next, again in 1982, Wausau obtained fed up with currently being left out Using the Florida lists of fun, fairs and festivals. Every single set in place Florida demands a Pageant. Instead of a person put in position Florida includes a Possum Festival. Why not Wausau?
If you haven't been to Washington County, you probably will think I'm generating this up. Should you have frequented Washington County, you will comprehend - and know It's a genuine story.
Wausau, it wound up, experienced some very potent possum politicians from the early '80s. Here are two factors they attained:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the extremely to start with Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led to your constructing from your monument together Condition Highway 77 in Wausau.
They even got America Congress to current market the possum. Congress joined the entertaining by way of giving website the cash for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau may have a spot to help keep its once-a-year Exciting Working day and Possum Festival. Featuring a queen contest and possum auction, amid other points, the Pageant attracts A huge number of persons every year, and so that they adore it.
Day trip for some educating of Northerners here. The South's possum is the similar lowly animal you connect with opossum, (Why use seven letters when six will probably do?) It's a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and displays its unappealing physique only in the evening. This is why, if you're from the suitable location in Florida, you could listen to possum hunters' canine baying and barking. Treed by canine, the possum 'freezes', so It'll be not so complicated seize (or shoot) just one.
An inscription in regards to the monument in the guts of Wausau cites the possum's job in giving 'each fur and foodstuff' in the full generations. It goes to say: 'Their existence listed here has supplied a resource of nutritious and flavorful foods in ordinary times and it's got been a significant assist to human survival in moments of distress and important require.'
Giggle if you prefer. The people today of Wausau will snicker with you - while downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.