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Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This

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is Forest Stories. I am the Poet in the Forest,

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a children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,

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none of it would be possible if it wasn't for

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this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I

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talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's

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time that you get to know what has inspired me

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for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.

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Welcome back to the Forest. Raymond, Oh Raymond. If you

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were to ever meet Raymond, you would be just as

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touched as everybody who has been a part of Raymond's

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chapters for the past twenty six years. Raymond is a

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gord a gourd that's been painted to look like a penguin.

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He's got a beautiful nose, He's got unbelievable eyes. He's

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even got a wife because I was the efficient at

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Raymond's wedding. Every year at Christmas we do the White Elephant,

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and every year we fight to have the right to

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spend a year with Raymond. You know, to another neighborhood,

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it might not be that big, but to this forest,

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Raymond has been everywhere sitting next to the pool, sitting

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inside our forest in the way of collecting sand from

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the side of the lake, or just sitting there staring

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at the slow moving stream. Raymond. Everybody every year wants

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to get their hands on Raymond. And you know what's

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really interesting about this year. Raymond was actually the last

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gift that was chosen because the person that was ready

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to share it with the next generation, well, they put

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it in a different box. It wasn't Raymond inside the box.

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It was just all the pictures. And I'm talking about

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hundreds of pictures with all of these families who have

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been with Raymond. A gourd painted black and white to

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look like a penguin with his wife and all of

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those photographs. I want you to meet Raymond sometime because

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Raymond will warm your heart when you're the coldest you've

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ever been. Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation.