Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. Welcome
to Forest Stories, a series of short winded adventures within
a collection of skyscraping trees stuck feet first in Georgia
Clay right here in Carolina. It's been a huge part
of my daily journey for over thirty three years. I
Am the Poet in the Forest, a children's series written
and recorded in the nineteen nineties. It's grown into multiple
podcasts that now reach around the world, and none of
it would be possible without this forest. Right here in
South Charlotte, North Carolina, at the base of Heartbreak Hills,
sits a sign that reads Rainbow Forest. Well, it's time
you get to meet what's inspired several generations. Long before
the paved paths decorated with colorful homes colonized around this
beautiful lake, slow moving stream, flatland swamps and array of
natural animals, there were families and business owners who are
said to have raced into this area for the beauty
of the land, wild roses, migratory birds, and wild grapevines.
Those before me either forgot to write about it or
it's buried somewhere inside their family tree. Hey, thanks for
being a part of the conversation Welcome back to the forest.
A couple of weeks ago on Forest Stories, we came
across a pair of red workmen's gloves on the forest floor.
I put them to the side, because somebody who would
lose a nice pair of gloves like that is going
to have blisters on their hands in the day's ahead
if they don't find their gloves. But then again, we
are the society that will instantly return to Amazon and
or Walmart and we'll buy more red gloves that we
can put on our workmen's fingertips so that we don't
get those blisters. Two weeks have gone by, and those
gloves have now been moved from the gutter that I
put them on because it's concrete and so they wouldn't
get all mixed up in the weeds and the tall
grasses of this forest floor. Today they're on something else
of higher value, in the higher places. And the thing
is is that they're still looking at you, wondering, hey
are you mother? Do you remember that children's book are
you My Mother? Wasn't it a gosling that was running
around asking every animal in the farmyard, hey are you
my mother? And I do look at things like that,
such as the red workman's gloves, wondering are you my owner?
Are you my owner? Are you the one that once
had me inside the cab of their pickup or in
the warmth of their back pocket? Are you my mother?
I think of that often when I walk through this beautiful,
beautiful forest, when I see the baby squirrels, the baby fawn.
There are many times that I see dough with two
and three babies. You didn't have three babies. Did one
of these fawn walk up to you inside this forest
and ask you? Are you my mother? Why? Yes, I
am your mother today, and today I will protect you,
I will guide you, I will make sure that you
have the right encouragement as well as nourishment. Yeah, today
I am your mother. Somewhere along this deer trail that
will walk upon you will have to meet up with
who your mother really is, if she is still with us,
Because you know how man is, and you know the
walk in the way of the coyote. They're not asking
that question are you my mother? Other things that come
to mind when it comes to these workmen's gloves, red
in color, very bright, a man probably getting blisters on
his fingers, or on the very tips of his fingers
from having to type into the computer screen to order more.
But it reminds me of the old saying goody two shoes.
Do you remember that? Do you realize that came from
a story back in the eighteen hundreds about an orphaned
girl who had only one shoe and then somebody, somebody
gifted her with two shoes. So therefore she would walk
around telling that story, and she was a goodie two
shoe in the way that you hear goodie two shoes today,
because over the years and man's evil changing ways, they
created a different story of goodie two shoes somebody who
was better than and yet back in the eighteen hundreds,
in this story, that young orphaned girl was never better than,
but she was very excited about having two shoes rather
than just one. And I feel the same story inside
this forest with this red pair of workmen's gloves, somebody
is without gloves. Will somebody come along and pull these
red gloves workmen's gloves into their life? But will they
treat it as the original story of the Goodye two
shoes because they needed those gloves? Or will they be
a goody goody two shoes, because it's something to add
to their arsenal of tools when they've already had too many.
Inside the chain, A lot can be learned while you're
walking through a forest from the mothers the dough that
have three fawn. How is it even feasibly possible? When
I grew up in Montana and Wyoming and you took
the bum sheep away from the mothers so they could
be fed, It was the pop bottles, the soda bottles.
We would fill it with warm, fresh milk from the
cattle and give it to the bombs. We didn't see
sheep with three lambs. What we saw was sheep with
one lamb, and the bums were over there in the shed.
The man took care of the bombs with that fresh milk.
Who will take care of the red gloves the workmen's gloves?
Will we identify the bear man's hands that now have
blisters even if they are looking for them a new
pair on Amazon or Walmart dot com. There's always story
around us. There's always somebody needing something around us. There's
always something that is missing a human being nearby. But
will we find them and a human being that is
missing them? Do they see them, or are they blinded
by the secondary story of Goodie Goody two shoes. Hi Marl,
thanks for being a part of the conversation.