A”POSSUM-PERFORMANCE” – By Des Kelly

A fairly common marsupial of Australia, which has no less than 9 different species. Cute, clever, cuddley little creatures that cannot be kept as pets, still exist quite well in the wild, will not attack man or beast unless threatened themselves, but will encroach into human habitat sometimes in order to feed themselves and their families when the going gets tough in the forests that are being “eaten-into” by humans, hungry, not for food, but, for WOOD.

     An Australian family, who deserve individual gold medals for running their natural Australian Zoo in the Gold Coast area of Oz., owned by Terri Irwin (American wife of the late, great Steve), & children Bindy, together with her brother Robert, the “spitting-image” of his father, are all genuine animal-lovers, and a family that every Australian is very proud of, and so, they should be. Bindy & “Bob”, as youngsters, featured in various television documentaries, one of which was dedicated to Brush-tailed Possums.

     Strangely enough, there were only TWO species of Possums in America. One is another beautiful animal, the Virginia O-Possum, and the other is, now unfortunately, was, an absolutely superb “Country-Singer”also nicknamed the “Possum”, known World-wide, as George Jones, who died in 2013. Incidentally, the Virginia O-Possum is still very much alive, & thus remains the only species in America. Why do I intermix the “species”?, only because it was GOD who created us all, and in my eyes, animals are far superior to some “humankind” around the World, today. 

     “The Possum” George Jones,was undoubtedly in my own top ten “Male Vocalists” in Country Music, which include Merle Haggard, Jim Reeves, Gene Watson, Ray Price, Vince Gill, Waylon Jennings, Marty Robbins, Sammy Kershaw, & Willie Nelson, among others, too numerous to mention. 

Every song that he sang practically “lived” his own life. “He stopped loving her today” was surveyed as the greatest Country Song of all time, and no-one could sing that sad song like George Jones. Thousands in his audiences everywhere, ended up with tears in their eyes as George sang this song & many thousands of mourners felt the same as they lined the Street where the Possum lay in his casket on the 26th of April 2013.

     This is another tribute, in fact, another “Possum-performance”or two, especially for readers of eLanka. A couple of lesser-known, but still beautiful renditions, from the American Possum, now gone, but still only “Just out of reach”  Enjoy.

   Desmond Kelly

   Star of eLanka

  (Editor-in-Chief).