Opossum, anyone?

At a message board I frequently post on, we recently had a discussion about all the ways to cook nurtia, a beaver-like rat specimen that destroys wetlands and bogs. That led to my pigsfeet blog earlier this week.

Now, I'm here to report on the opossum, the nocturnal creature that I haven't even found a use for.

It seems this man, Clay Logan, hosts several thousand people every New Year's Eve for the annual Possum Drop.

It's North Carolina's equivalent of the New York City Times Square extravaganza and Logan actually lowers a caged opossum as the clock winds down to midnight. Notice I wrote lowered instead of dropped like the do in other cities. Dropping an opossum would be inhumane to some folks while lowering is an allowable form of entertainment.

So if you have nothing else to do next December 31, join me as we head down to Clay's Corner, which I understand to be a small hamlet (population has remained at 200 for the past 100 years) near Brasstown, in Clay County, NC.

After all, it's the Opossum Capital of the World.

Editor's Note: Special thanks to the author of a new blog I came across yesterday, Dogs, Puppies and Prose, who visited Brasstown this past December 31 and witnessed the event. Also thanks to Boodro, the poster on Bits and Pieces that has lowered us to this new level of enterprise.