New Year's Eve Possum Drop

[Cerek the Barbaric]

This is a very popular event here in my hometown. I've never been myself (even though it is only about 5 miles from my house), but I know several people who have and I even worked with one of the main organizers of the annual event at my former job.

What really amazes me is that this place is literally a wide spot in the road, yet it actually made the N.Y. Times! [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] That is just unbelievable to me.

N.Y. Times covers "Possum Drop" in Brasstown, NC

BRASSTOWN, N.C., Dec. 30 - The lights are strung, the stage is set and Baby New Year is waiting in a cage, hissing.
Brasstown, once again, is ready for the Possum Drop.

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.

Talk about parallel universes.

It started 13 years ago, when someone said to Clay Logan, owner of
Brasstown's only gas station and vendor of kitschy possum products, "If New
York City can drop a ball, why can't we drop a possum?"

Mr. Logan could think of no reason why not.

At midnight, as he lets a rope slip between his fingers, lowering a possum
in a plexiglass cage from the roof of his gas station, Mr. Logan will call
out, as he has every New Year's Eve since 1990, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1!"

And then, as the crowd starts going bananas, "The possum has landed!" The
possum is alive, of course, and will be released at the end of the night
unharmed, if a little shaken.

The show is more than just the spectacle of suspending in the air a
fuzzy-headed, pink-pawed animal that looks as if someone stuck it together
with spare parts. There are fireworks, the firing of muskets, country food
like peach cobbler and bear stew and the Miss Possum contest, a
cross-dressing affair in which bearded truck drivers wear eye shadow and
strut across the stage with hands like oven mitts swinging at the sides of
bursting lace dresses.

There will also be bluegrass music, including a crowd-pleaser that includes
the line, "Down in the darkness, much to my delight, there's five pounds of
possum in my headlights tonight."

Life, Mr. Logan says, is full of possum-bilities. Over the years he has
worked to promote Brasstown as the "Possum Capital of the World," not
because it has an unusually large possum population but because Brasstown
"desperately needed something."

The town, tucked in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains about two and
a half hours north of Atlanta, survives on cattle farming, a few small
tobacco plots and industrial jobs where people can find them. Brasstown
became famous for 15 minutes a few years ago when townspeople were said to
be sheltering Eric Rudolph, the abortion-clinic bombing suspect who was
captured in May after five years on the run.

Mr. Rudolph grew up around here, not far from the Citgo gas station near
Greasy Creek Road where Mr. Logan does a brisk trade in stuffed possum toys,
cat-food-size tins of "possum roadkill" (actually filled with dirt), and
T-shirts that proclaim possum to be "the Other, Other White Meat."

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

"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."

On Tuesday, Mr. Logan pumped gas and squeegeed windshields as his friends
prepared the stage in front of his gas station, Clay's Corner. Electronics
included a computer system and a 10-foot-tall TV screen known as the
Possumtron. Mr. Logan is expecting up to 1,000 people, a lot for a town with
240 residents.

In the afternoon, Mr. Logan and his buddies drove out to inspect this year's
star, curled up in a wire cage on a breezy hilltop in an undisclosed
location. Each year, several Brasstown hunters trap a cast of possums for
Mr. Logan to chose from.

"Ain't it pretty?" Mr. Logan asked as he scooped the male possum out of its
cage and dangled it by its long, pink tail. His friend, Paul Crisp, nodded
and said, "Now, that's a town possum."

"Yep," Mr. Logan said. "Pretty face, nice slick fur."

The possum thing is tongue-in-cheek, Mr. Logan explained. He is a firm
believer of the rule that there is nothing funnier than laughing at
yourself.

"We're kind of poking fun at all the stereotypes of rednecks and
hillbillies," he said.

Mr. Crisp, who drives an enormous pickup and speaks knowledgeably about
gigabytes and microprocessors, said, "We're high-tech rednecks."

[Larry_OHF]

Ummm...

Well...I thought the yearly "Rhodedenron Festival" up in Bakersville was backwoods.

I guess I was wrong.

[Ladyzekke]

ROTFL!!

Although I must say, my Nunzeo says he isn't amused by that festival LOL.



[ 12-31-2003, 11:36 PM: Message edited by: ladyzekke ]

[Bungleau]

Okay, I can't think of anything to top the Possum Drop...

North Carolina wins... something, I'm sure.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Bungleau: Okay, I can't think of anything to top the Possum Drop... North Carolina wins... something, I'm sure.

Yeah, we won something alright....the ire of the stupid PETA-heads. These idiots are un-freakin-believable.....


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."

This is the part that really gets me the angriest...

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

Do these yuckapucks have nothing better to do than to sit around and threaten small town business owners with lawsuits over ridiculous 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. And then it is release - UNHARMED - back into the wild after the show is over.

What a bunch of meddling, clueless buttheads!!! [img]graemlins/bart.gif[/img]

[Davros]

Well Cerek - the good news is that on this thread we can be in complete agreement. While I will say that PETA aren't a completely useless organistaion, frivolous crap along the lines of this lawyer stunt is what really pisses so many people off.

[InjaYew]

Maybe they should have a yearly lawyer drop, sans rope... [img]redface.gif[/img]

[Dron_Cah]

lol... Hope fully you didn't offend the lawyers on this board too much. [img]tongue.gif[/img]
Oh, and...

[img]graemlins/thewave.gif[/img]
WELCOME TO IRONWORKS, INJAYEW!!!
[img]graemlins/thewave.gif[/img]

[Bungleau]

Nah... it's not the lawyers. It's the excessive liberals... drop one of them, sans rope. I nominate the guy from PETA who made the phone call...

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Bungleau: Nah... it's not the lawyers. It's the excessive liberals... drop one of them, sans rope. I nominate the guy from PETA who made the phone call...

Now THERE'S an event that people would come out to see. [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

Well, at least Mr. Logan took it all in stride. I imagine he will have to use a dead possum from now on....and somebody in CE suggested using a stuffed possum. I think that would be a wonderful idea...only I don't mean stuffed toy possum...I mean take a real possum that has been stuffed by a taxidermist.

Then again, that costs a LOT of money....and I don't know many people that would be willing to spend that kind of money on a stuffed possum. Of course, folks around here are the kind that will pitch in and help out a neighbor in need. So several of these "good ole boys" that helped find the possum this year might be willing to donate a few dollars towards a permanent fixture for the event.

There are some pics of the event in the local paper. If I can get them to scan, I'll post some of them here.