If you want to learn about someplace , you could always pick up a school text . But if you desire to get to recognise a plaza , you ’re go to have to grasp a small deeper . And what you find there might be a petty foreign . The Strange States serial will take you on a virtual circuit of America to reveal the strange people , places , things , and events that make this country such a unequaled place to call menage .
This sentence we ’re headed to the home of peaches , peanuts , Coca - Cola , and Billy Carter : The Empire State of the South , Georgia .
The Possum Drop
New York City may dangle a giant Waterford Crystal ball on New Year ’s Eve , but Tallapoosa , Georgia has the next adept affair — a stuffed phalanger named Spencer . OK , so maybe it ’s not an even comparability , but the 4000 hoi polloi who annually attendthe Possum Dropwouldn’t have it any other way .
The account of Spencer initiate many long time ago , when Bud Jones spy a drained opossum on the side of the road . Jones pulled over to retrieve the saucy roadkill and took it back to his taxidermy shop / wildlife museum to work his preservation illusion . He placed the new piece on display and identify it Spencer after Ralph Spencer , a businessman who helped the townspeople fly high in the belated 1800s .
But why confer such an honor on a curly - tailed pouched mammal ? Before the city became officially known as Tallapoosa after the nearby river of the same name , the miners who pan for gold in the part called the township Possum Snout . Many local consider this coloured account a point of pride , so possums have become a sort of unofficial mascot of the town .
The tradition of dropping Spencer , case in a conducting wire frame orb covered with ashen Christmas lights , from the roof of one of the improbable and oldest buildings in township , set about in the early 2000s with just a small gathering of booster . The Drop fall out every other yr until the celebration grew large enough to warrant an one-year issue . Today , mass from all over the region get along to Tallapoosa to enjoy a night of intellectual nourishment , drink , and lively music , and to find the crowning of the new ( human ) Possum King and Queen , all before weigh down the filiation of Spencer . When the long - dead guest of honor touch down , it sets off one of the largest pyrotechnic displays in the state . And you do n’t require a crystallization ball to know a good time is had by all .
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See all entries in the Strange States serieshere .
