|
Keep Your Ball. We've Got the Possum.
Yes, the annual New Year's Eve Possum Drop, the one and only, inspired by the dropping of a certain illuminated ball 670 miles away. On Thursday, at the stroke of midnight, at the exact moment that hundreds of thousands of people holler in the New Year at Times Square, with millions more tipping back champagne flutes and watching it on TV, a few hundred people will huddle at a Citgo station in this little Appalachian town, wearing hunting jackets and hats with dangling ear flaps, to cheer the descent of one confused marsupial. ''We love possums around here,'' said Mr. Logan, 57, as he spat an oyster of tobacco juice and wiped his gray beard. ''They're an animal everybody says is the dumbest animal in the world, and they probably are. But they'll save your life. If you're out in the woods and you get lost, just follow a possum track and it'll take you right to the road.'' Opossum buffaloed Demand an End to North Carolina 'Possum Drop' ''We weren't terrorizing it. That little fella is just sitting there.'' William Reppy, a Duke University professor who teaches animal law, said the possum drop was probably not illegal. North Carolina prohibits unjustifiable physical abuse to animals, but the law does not say anything about psychological pain. ''I don't think any D.A. would touch it with a 10-foot pole,'' Professor Reppy said. That frustrates Brenda Overman, president of the Greensboro, N.C., chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. ''I'm sure the animal is traumatized,'' Ms. Overman said. ''You walk up on a possum in the woods, they freeze; they're terrified. They're putting it through horror for hours. Instant death would be better.'' Posted by: KBK 2007-01-01 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=176598 |