User:Teugene.morris

Purple-winged Opossum

Outside the small town of Stanley, Kentucky, there is a wetland known to locals as Reno Woods. Also known to locals is the myth of the purple-winged opossum that happens to live mostly in this swampy area. For decades now, coon hunters near the Ohio River of Western Kentucky have shared stories of a gray-colored animal with bright, nearly phosphorescent purple protrusions on its back. As the stories go, upon being disturbed, the creature takes flight from the tree like a powerful owl and as quick as a brier hungry rabbit. Most of the time, the creature moves so quickly, that its actual shape cannot be made out, and very few defining characteristics have been recorded. "At first I thought it might be an albino raccoon, the way its fur was colored. Then it turned and looked at me with those ocher eyes, and the purple colored portions of its back began to move. The next thing I knew, it was gone and the leaves were shaking and my dogs were quiet like a car ride," Roy Blankenship of Sorgho, Kentucky reported. The purple-winged opossum has never been observed on the ground--as the legend goes, they stay in treetops their entire lives--spotting a purple-winged opossum is an omen of great fortune. It is said in the communities outlining Daviess County, Kentucky that the purple-winged opossum carries with it, when it goes, all the wishes and desires of the witness and drops them across the countryside as it flies to a new tree line free of humans, where actual magic still exists. Young men of the area have been known to hunt the purple-winged opossum when in admiration of a particular female in hopes that if they desire it enough, the animal will pick up their hope and drop it somewhere near the lady in question, much like a Cupid of the South. --Teugene.morris (talk) 18:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)Travis Morris