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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. When you know something isn't right,

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This is going to sound kind of odd, but maybe

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in your own way, you'll understand. In this forest, it's

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not that we live in a home depot or a

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low's design forest, because it's very, very open. You step

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into this forest, you're going to see fallen limbs. You're

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going to see trees that grew awkwardly wrong, but it

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seems right. But the homes that are in this forest

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have been pruned. They look nice. But when you know

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there's something wrong, when the lawns aren't being cut and

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the tree limbs are still laying on their lawns, not

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necessarily in the forest, on their lawns. We just recently

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had a situation where I was speaking to a man

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that I've known for many, many, many years. I didn't

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think there was anything wrong with our conversation. We spoke

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openly many times about walking up and down Heartbreak Hill.

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But his lawn was hardly, if ever cut. I didn't

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realize that he had Alzheimer's. See from the outside. I

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don't judge a book by its cover until you see

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something different about the lawn. I asked many questions. Maybe

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it's because he's old, Maybe his lawn mower is broken down.

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People would come by and offer to cut his lawn,

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but he didn't Alzheimer's, and now he's in a retirement home.

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The house said, simpty, A vacant spot in the forest

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from a man who loved his side of the forest

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so much. At the base of Heartbreak Hill, the big

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Yellow House. Its lawn hasn't been cut for a few weeks.

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It makes you wonder what's going on and is it

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really any of my business? Your lawn? It says a

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lot about you. And as I pass the bee keeper's

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part of the forest right now, his lawn is out

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of control too. Come to think of it, I haven't

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seen him since the day he hung the sign that

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he has his honey up for sale. It's been there

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now several weeks. When I know in the past, in

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this forest his honey is usually gone within a few days.

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O A lot to think about as the forest evolves.

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He thanks for being a part of the conversation.