Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This
is Forest Stories. I am the Poet in the Forest,
a children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,
none of it would be possible if it wasn't for
this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I
talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's
time that you get to know what has inspired me
for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.
Welcome back to the forest. The sad thing about being
in this forest for as many years as we've been
the memories they do fade. They go away pretty quickly
as to the people that you have surrounded yourself with.
What's really interesting about these modern times? And I had
to deal with this during the COVID lockdown inside this forest,
there was a thing that I dubbed the COVID house.
A lot of homes went dark. You didn't see anybody
go in or come out, and so I always called
it the COVID house. Did they leave the area? Did
they transition? Why is this house and why are these
houses sitting here completely blank? I'm having to deal with
that again with Ron and Carroll's house no, it wasn't.
Covid Ron and Carroll did sell their home to professional
home owners. You know what that means, don't you. They
just buy them. They buy them to have them, not
for people to move in. And so this beautiful home
in the center of this forest has been sitting here
now one hundred percent empty going on two and a
half years. And just down the hill we've talked about
this the pig Lady. Her house has now been empty
a year. So there's a lot of emptiness back into
this forest. And when we take this transition walk through
this forest, even on a cloudy day like today, you
can't help but feel just as empty as those homes,
because I knew they were homes. We went into those homes,
We celebrated the holidays together inside those homes. And she
was called the pig Lady for a negative reason because
she had a pig. She raised a pig, and so
we always called her the pig Lady. But the home
is empty, and those of us that travel through this forest,
we do feel that emptiness. But how do you get
it back if you've got professional home owners in control
of the situation. I mean, they even parked cars in
the driveway without license plates. But you know, I tried
to ask him about it, and he just told me
to go away. And I said, hey, you're making this
forest look like a ghetto, and he goes a ghetto.
Do you think this forest looks like a ghetto because
of my two cars without license plates? Yeah? Yeah I do. Hey,
thanks for being a part of the conversation.