Speaker 1: Hey, when it comes to podcasts listening, are you like me?
I mean, it's like television surfing. You're like all over
the place looking for that one thing that you can
add to your moment of now. Be it forest stories,
be it rockstar stories, talking with a chef, whatever you're
looking for. That's what ero dot net is all about.
Arrooe dot net. The searching is over. It's all in
one place. Enjoy the exploration. 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 and 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. It's 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 raised 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. You know. For the longest time, on
these little stories that we share, I've talked about Swan Lake,
which also has the name Silver Lake, because the streets
that lead up to them have that as the name
of the street. If it says it's Swan Lake and
at the end of that is a lake, it must
be Swan Lake or Silver Lake, Right. That's how we're
convinced that that must be true. But it's not true.
I've learned over the past seven to ten days that
this lake really has a deeper history than what I think.
The actual name of this lake is Ivy Lake. They
owned a lot of land before everybody started moving in
from around the country and from around the world. The
Ivys had this lake that they used for entertainment purposes.
They also used it to keep the cattle fed. This
is cattle country, this is livestock country, and so before
everybody moved in, this is where the animals roamed around freely,
which is every bit the reason why I totally believe
and support why the deer are here, why the hawks
play around, and the owls, the squirrels, all of the
wildlife that is here. If we knew the history of
the lay of the land before our arrival, and that
includes everybody who lived in your area of the forest
long before you got there, then you know what, The
story becomes thicker, and there is nothing wrong with an nice,
thick book, something that holds the story. One of the
things that Dolly Parton once said that really continues to
vibrate inside my heart. She used to say, country music
is more than what you think it is. Country music
is how we used to get the word out about
our little gatherings of people. So if Johnny was sick,
it would show up in a country song, and that
country song would pass from this small collection of people
to that small collection of people, and eventually it becomes regional.
But it never really became national, not until radio jumped
in and said, oh, we can do something with this.
And of course the Grand Ole Opry was all about
getting a wider reach and everything. But it makes you wonder,
what kind of music, what kind of creativity, what kind
of that universal language lived inside this force by Ivy Lake,
not Swan, not Silver, but Ivy Lake before we got here,
and were their poets and authors, songwriters and dreamers that
sat on the edge of that lake and really felt
that the future was speaking to them. Leave something for
those that will one day be asking what was it like?
He thanks for being a part of the conversation.