[Cerek the Barbaric]

Here in rural Western NC, we don't have a big fancy ball to drop on New Year's Eve. So a local gas station/convenience store owner came up with a unique alternative 13 years ago...he captured an animal very common to this area, built a special plexiglass cage for it, and held the first annual "Possum Drop".

Two days ago, I was excitedly impressed to see that this colloquial tradition (which literally takes place at a wide spot in the road) was actually featured in no less than the N.Y. Times. I posted the original story in the G.D. forum on New Year's Eve. You can read it here - New Year's Eve Possum Drop

My joy was short-lived, however. Even though this event takes place about 5 miles from my house, I have never gone. Therefore, I didn't realize until today that the first article in the N.Y. Times had also managed to capture the attention of another interested group - the PETA-heads. As soon as they learned of this event, they phoned the store owner and threatened to sue him if he dared to use a live possum for this year's Possum Drop. Here is the full story as written in the N.Y. Times yesterday. [img]graemlins/madhell.gif[/img]

A New Year's Tradition Lives, but the 4-Legged Star Doesn't


BRASSTOWN, N.C., Jan. 1 — For the last 12 years, on New Year's Eve, this Appalachian town has lowered a possum in a Plexiglas cage from the roof of a gas station at the stroke of midnight. It is called the Possum Drop, and hundreds of people pack downtown Brasstown to see it.

This time, Baby New Year was awfully still.

And as the crowd soon learned, this possum wasn't just playing possum. It was roadkill.

With just hours to go before the festivities, Clay Logan, host of the Possum Drop, said he got a call from a national animal rights organization threatening to sue him for animal cruelty if he used a live possum.

"So I found me a dead one," Mr. Logan said.

As fireworks popped and lovers kissed, the dead possum swung from a Citgo sign. And as the festivities ended, many revelers trudged away, saying their small town fun had been spoiled by big city ways.

"Hell of a way to start the New Year, saluting a dead possum," said Steve Barringer, a blacksmith.

Over the years, Mr. Logan, owner of Brasstown's only gas station, has promoted his town of 240 people as the Possum Capital of the World, selling kitschy possum gifts and organizing the Possum Drop.

Since 1991, Mr. Logan has used live possums, trapped by hunters, fattened on cat food and turned loose after they are lowered slowly by a rope from the roof of his gas station.

But on Wednesday, the day The New York Times published an article on the Possum Drop, Mr. Logan got a call from a man who said he represented People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, headquartered in Norfolk, Va. Debbie Leahy, director of PETA's captive animals and entertainment issues, said she did not know which member made the call but she said the event was "perverse, reckless and terrifying to the possum."

"There's a number of legal actions we could pursue against that guy," Ms. Leahy said.

Mr. Logan, 57, said he thought about using a live possum anyway.

"But I can't fight these people," he said. "Not with lawyers and all."

So, with the crowd building, Mr. Logan released the live possum from its cage and put the word out: find me another possum, a dead one.

His buddies took to the highways, wending their way through forests of rhododendron and pine, scouring the shoulders for that unlucky animal, hopefully one without tire tracks.

The drop had had setbacks before. Snow, rain, lighting problems. But there had always been a possum.

Finally, Mr. Logan's friends found a downed possum in pretty good shape and quickly hoisted it up to the roof of the Citgo station. Most people thought it was alive, even after Mr. Logan announced it was roadkill.

Mr. Logan is known to be a joker, especially when it comes to making fun of redneck culture, "which I'm entitled to do," he explained, "because I'm a redneck."

As it says on his Web site, www.clayscorner.com, "One man's roadkill is another man's icon."

"But, " Mr. Logan said Thursday with a swallow, "I never thought it would come down to this."

Do these yuckapucks have nothing better to do than to sit around and threaten small town business owners with lawsuits over harmless actions??? And to say the event is "terrifying to the possum" is beyond belief. This possum gets to live high on the hog for a whole year, being fed cat food and kept OFF the roadways where most possums end up around here. It is placed in a special plexiglass cage constructed specifically for this event and lowered very slowly (by hand) from the store's rooftop. And then it is released - UNHARMED - back into the wild after the show is over. Yet the PETA-heads can't leave it alone. So Mr. Logan had to send some of the locals out to find a substitute who hadn't been lucky enough to make it to the other side of the road.

That may have protected him this year, but I won't be a bit surprised if these idiots threaten to sue him again next year for using a dead possum. [img]graemlins/dontknowaboutyou.gif[/img]

And it is strong-arm, bullying tactics like this - over incidents where the animal is NOT being harmed in any way - that have become the rule at PETA, rather than the exception. And THAT is why I can't stand the PETA-heads.