92. Opossum

            While I’m going on about American animals that I am glad to have around—animals that I am glad to have around, animals that add to our American identity—I can’t forget the opossum, the only marsupial of North America. These little creatures are native to the south so I haven’t been around them a lot, but they have made it to the milder parts of the Northwest and can frequently be found as road kill in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. This is where I am familiar with these odd little creatures. More often than not they are illustrated as cute furry little animals with long tails that they hang by from tree branches. In reality they aren’t all that cute but more rat like. (As you may have gathered, I’m not a fan of rats.) However, they dwarf rats. So, perhaps I am more fond of the imaginative ‘possum than the real one, but there could never be an imagined ‘possum without a real one. So they have earned my respect as distinctly American creatures. They have added joy to our vernacular English as well because what American doesn’t know what it is to play ‘possum? There it is and then there it is not! Elusive and amazing little creatures that add so much to our identity in all its complexity as Americans. Ugly or not, who can’t be proud of these little southerners serving as Northwest road kill?