Why Union County 'Possums Are the Best, Dec. 17, 1920

The ‘possums of Union county are nightly prancing in kittenish frolicsomeness up and down the bows of the oaks and hickories of the forests primeval. A Union county citizen brought three robust and smiling ‘possums to Charlotte for sale. They were much fatter and sleeker than the marsupials of Union county usually are and their appearance drew quite a crowd to the sidewalk on the West Trade street, where the citizen of Union had parked his wagon. He said in all soberness, in answer to inquiries as to why the ‘possums being offered for sale from the forests of Union county are fatter than usual, that it was because they got much mash and swill from the stills that are being operated in that county. The man from Union painted a fine word picture of the prolixity of stills and the disposition of the hereto purely “dry” citizens to try their hand at making home brew of some kind or other. He said the remote fastnesses of the woods of the county are likely places for operating stills “unbeknownst” to the officers of the law and that the opportunity has been embraced to make all kinds of home brew. The ‘possums steal forth at night from their lairs in a hollow tree, a hollow log, a clay bank or elsewhere and seek the places out of the stills after a “run” of liquor has been made, it is declared. The man alleges that all over Union county ‘possums are unwontedly slick and fat this fall and that they are as playful and frisky as a cat with a ball of yarn about the hearthstone on a winter evening. Whether they ever attain stages for real intoxication, the man from Union did not undertake to say authoratatively. He strongly suspects they do, judging from the un-’possum-like behavior of some of those captured. (From the Charlotte Observer as reprinted on the front page of The Monroe Journal, Dec. 17, 1920)