Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Dec. 26, 2011

Possum and other droppings

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I have run across many articles about a small town’s plan to continue its annual New Year’s Eve “Possum Drop.” A good percentage of those articles referred to it as an “Opossum Drop,” but the good folks in the small town of Brasstown, in Cherokee County, North Carolina know that unless you’re referring to an Irish marsupial, the proper pronunciation is simply “possum.” The possum is not exactly dropped at all, only gently lowered inside a clear plexiglass case from the roof of the Clay’s Corner convenience store, some 14 feet to the ground. After the clock winds down to midnight and the possum arrives safely on terra firma, store owner Clay Logan, the assembled locals and the possum all join in shooting off fireworks, tossing confetti, licking their pelts and hissing. Then the possum is released into the wild, to tell his possum friends about his adventure in the big glass elevator. The sensitive souls at PETA, however, see this traditional ceremony as an infringement on the possum’s rights, and maintain that possums exposed to such treatment are often so traumatized that, even after years of therapy, they will walk fifty feet out of their way and take the stairs rather than ride in another elevator.

The Brasstown Possum Drop tradition immediately brought two questions to mind:


Q: If they have an annual Possum Drop in Cherokee County, North Carolina, has Cherokee County, Alabama ever celebrated New Year’s Eve the same way?

A: I don’t believe that there are any possum droppings here in Cherokee County, Alabama. Not the celebratory kind, anyway. The Possum Drop does, however, remind me of the old Turkey Trot tradition, practiced during the Thanksgiving holiday. In the late 1970s, shortly after we’d moved to the area, Marilyn and I were told that there would be a holiday Turkey Trot at a local shopping plaza. We were unfamiliar with the term, but since we liked parades and turkeys, we showed up in the plaza parking lot to watch the birds trot. We were disappointed when we learned that there was no actual trotting involved, only several live turkeys being tossed unceremoniously from a supermarket rooftop. It wasn’t pretty, and I don’t think anyone in the eager, grasping, jumping crowd got an entire turkey, only dismembered turkey parts. The turkey tossers also, for reasons known only to them, tossed ring-necked pheasants in the general direction of the crowd. But the pheasants, who were brighter birds than the turkeys, simply flew across the highway into a field somewhere. There was no PETA organization back then, but had there been, and had a contingent of PETA members witnessed the spectacle, I’m confident that each and every one of them would have stripped down to his or her altogether in solidarity with the poor, de-feathered turkeys.


Q: I know all about the Times Square New Year’s Eve Crystal Ball Drop, but besides that one and the Brasstown Possum Drop, are there any others across the country?

A: After this question came to mind, I spent considerable valuable time researching the answer, which is: YES! On New Year’s Eve, people from Maine to California are dropping things left and right. Here are some:


• In Eastport, Maine, due to some confusion over Daylight Saving Time, they drop two objects. First, they honor their Canadian neighbors to the north with a New Year’s Eve Red Maple Leaf Drop. An hour later they honor smelly little fish by dropping a really large sardine.

• In Key West, Florida, they still practice their New Year’s Eve Ruby Slipper Drop. The enormous, traditional ruby slipper will contain Key West’s enormous, traditional drag queen, Gary “Sushi” Marion, again this year.

• Then there’s Vincennes, Indiana’s New Year’s Eve 500 pound, 18-foot Steel and Foam Watermelon Ball Drop.

• And Easton, Maryland always has its Atomic Giant Crab Drop.

• Havre de Grace, Maryland has a New Year’s Eve Wooden Duck Drop, to honor that town’s thriving wooden duck industry.

• Not to be outdone, Eastover, North Carolina has a spectacular 3 foot tall, 30-pound Wooden Flea Drop on New Year’s Eve. To honor their thriving wooden flea industry, I suppose.

• Blain, Pennsylvania drops a wooden cow from a silo. This has nothing to do with New Year’s; they do it every weekend.

• Traverse City, Michigan has an Official New Year’s Eve Really, Really Big Cherry Drop (the pit alone weighs 120 pounds).

• Nashville, Tennessee celebrates New Year’s Eve with their 80-foot Guitar Drop from their very own Hard Rock Café.

• And then there’s Elmore, Ohio’s Exceptionally Huge Midnight Sausage Drop, followed an hour later by their Exceptionally Huge Maalox Antacid Tablet Drop.

• Beavertown, Pennsylvania, not surprisingly, celebrates New Year’s Eve with a Gigantic Artificial Beaver Drop.

• And Beibertown, Utah will celebrate New Year’s Eve with a Gigantic, Artificial Justin Beiber Drop this year. No firearms will be allowed.

• The proud residents of Falmouth, Pennsylvania love their traditional New Year’s Eve Stuffed Goat Drop. The goat does not.

• Mobile, Alabama has a 600-pound Electric Moon Pie Drop, and after midnight the Chattanooga Bakery serves celebrants a 55-pound, 45,000-calorie chocolate Moon Pie. At 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Mobile drops two dozen stomach pumps from the top floor of Springhill Medical Center.

• And there is Tulsa, Oklahoma’s 60-foot, Inflatable Likeness of the Late Oral Roberts Drop.

• Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin celebrates with their Annual New Year’s Eve 30-pound Dead Carp Drop.

• In Detroit, Michigan, they Drop a 90-foot Foam Rubber Football from the top of the Penobscot Building to honor their beloved Detroit Lions. They don’t just drop it once, they drop it twice, and allow it to roll all the way down I-75 to Toledo.

• And last New Year’s Eve, in an effort to promote the durability of their electric cars, Flint, Michigan’s General Motors Assembly Plant used a 110-foot crane and a logging chain harness to lower massive filmmaker Michael Moore onto the roof of a 2011 Chevrolet Volt. Fortunately, the car was still be under warranty. Unfortunately, the driver was not. This year’s Michael Moore Drop has been cancelled due to a court injunction.


Given my age, this New Year’s Eve I’ll probably just drop off to sleep.