The Weirdest Objects Dropped On New Year's Eve In America

In 1907, in Celebration of New Year's Eve in Times Square, the first ball was dropped. Since then the ball has changed (and grown in size, the lights have gone from incandescent to halogen to LED--but the ball has always remained a ball (except for the 80s, when a red and green apple was used). The popularity of the Times Square Ball drop has inspired hundreds of imitators, some similar, others not so similar, and still others downright bizarre:

1) Tallapoosa, Georgia - A Live Opossum

The lights are strung, the stage is set and Baby New Year is waiting in a cage, hissing.  

Brasstown, once again, is ready for the Possum Drop.

Yes, the annual New Year's Eve Possum Drop, the one and only, inspired by the dropping of a certain illuminated ball 670 miles away.

On Thursday, at the stroke of midnight, at the exact moment that hundreds of thousands of people holler in the New Year at Times Square, with millions more tipping back champagne flutes and watching it on TV, a few hundred people will huddle at a Citgo station in this little Appalachian town, wearing hunting jackets and hats with dangling ear flaps, to cheer the descent of one confused marsupial.

Talk about parallel universes.

It started 13 years ago, when someone said to Clay Logan, owner of Brasstown's only gas station and vendor of kitschy possum products, ''If New York City can drop a ball, why can't we drop a possum?''

Mr. Logan could think of no reason why not.

At midnight, as he lets a rope slip between his fingers, lowering a possum in a plexiglass cage from the roof of his gas station, Mr. Logan will call out, as he has every New Year's Eve since 1990, ''5, 4, 3, 2, 1!''  

And then, as the crowd starts going bananas, ''The possum has landed!'' The possum is alive, of course, and will be released at the end of the night unharmed, if a little shaken. (Source)

2) Fayetteville, Arkansas - A Metal Hog

Brandon White of Tontitownbased L&L Metal Fabrication is creating a one-of-a-kind, lighted Razorback to be dropped from the top of a 20-foot pole at the end of the Fayetteville Town Center plaza. The hog is 4 feet long “from nose to tail” and 2 feet tall, says White.

“As the hog raises, the pole will light up. As the hog drops, the lights will go out,” he adds. It’ll be just like the big ball that drops on Times Square in New York on New Year’s Eve. (Source)

3) Key West, Florida - A Conch Shell, A Pirate Wench, & A Drag Queen

Take your pick between a conch shell drop, a pirate "wench" drop from a 110-foot sailboat mast or a Red High Heel Drop featuring a drag queen. The conch shell drops at Sloppy Joe's bar, the wench at Schooner Wharf Bar and the high heel at Bourbon St. Pub/New Orleans House. (Source)

4) Eastport, Maine - A Sardine

A 22-foot-long sardine.

The sardine is a symbol for the easternmost city in the United States, where canneries were once a booming industry. The canneries are gone, and Eastport is known as an artsy seaside community with galleries and a quaint downtown. But the sardine is a new New Year's Eve tradition.

"We thought it was intriguing enough, bizarre enough, that it might catch some interest," said Hugh French , director of Eastport's Tides Institute & Museum of Art , which will lower the sardine on Sunday night. (Source)

5) Susquehanna Valley, Pennsylvania - Multiple

News 8 will be live at the annual strawberry drop in Harrisburg. Thursday, workers put up the strawberry that will be dropped from the Harrisburg Hilton.

News 8 will also be live at the bologna drop in Lebanon, the white rose drop in York and the raising of the red rose in Lancaster.

Also in Lancaster County, there's the M&M drop in Elizabethtown, a goat drop in Falmouth, an orb in Manheim, a pretzel in Lititz and a frog in Frogtown.

In Dauphin County, Hershey will raise a kiss at midnight for the first time. Middletown, which has decided to move its festivities indoors this year, will drop an orb, Gratz a wildcat and Hummelstown a lollipop.

In York County, Dillsburg will drop a pickle, Seven Valleys will drop a chicken and Red Lion will raise a cigar.

In Cumberland County, Mechanicsburg will drop a wrench, Shippensburg an anchor and Newville a spring.

In Lebanon County, Cleona will drop a pretzel and, for the first time, Richland will drop a cigar.

In Perry County, Duncannon will drop a sled, Liverpool a canal boat, Blain will drop a cow and New Bloomfield will lower a huckleberry.

In Adams County, New Oxford will drop an antique trunk. (Source)