DailySusan Humor Blog

2004: Oh, the Possum-bilities

Just put a certain young man back on a plane to North Carolina after a visit here in Nebraska. Our daughter met him at the university in Chapel Hill. He's quite a guy. We were worried that Nebraska wouldn't measure up for him, since his hobbies include kayaking in the Outer Banks and surfing and so forth. All we can offer here is the Boys Town Stamp Ball and an occasional skinny-dip in an irrigation ditch, but certainly not at Christmastime unless you're really hardy.

But we shouldn't have worried about our home state coming off as Hicksville. I just read an item about Brasstown, N.C., where instead of dropping a lighted ball at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, they drop an opossum.

That's right: over a thousand people gather at the town's only gas stastion, the Citgo, and watch a possum in a Plexiglass cage being lowered from the roof. They can watch this live, or on the 10-foot TV screen dubbed "Possom-tron." After the firing of muskets and so forth, they let the little critter go.

And that's New Year's Eve in North Carolina.

Hmm. There may not be a whole awful lot to do in the Cornhusker State. But at least we haven't had to stoop to centering our partying around roadkill. Yet.

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Prayer request: Lord, we thank You for this new year in Your beautiful world with all that You have provided for us. We plead with You to bring peace to all the nations so that each of us can enjoy Your gifts the way You intended. (Ecclesiastes 5:19)

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Happy New Year! DailySusan is changing into a blog with humorous commentary, a Sunday column called "Radiant Beams," and a daily prayer matched with a Bible verse. Feel feel to contribute ideas and prayer requests by emailing me at swilliams1@cox.net