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

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to Forest Stories, a series of short winded adventures within

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a collection of skyscraping trees stuck feet first in Georgia

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Clay right here in Carolina. It's been a huge part

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of my daily journey for over thirty three years. I

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Am the Poet in the Forest, a children's series written

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and recorded in the nineteen nineties. It's grown into multiple

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podcasts that now reach around the world, and none of

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it would be possible without this forest. Right here in

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South Charlotte, North Carolina, at the base of Heartbreak Hills,

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sits a sign that reads Rainbow Forest. Well, it's time

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you get to meet what's inspired several generations. Long before

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the paved paths decorated with colorful homes colonized around this

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beautiful lake, slow moving stream, flatland swamps and array of

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natural animals, there were families and business owners who are

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said to have raced into this area for the beauty

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of the land, wild roses, migratory birds, and wild grapevines.

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Those before me either forgot to write about it or

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it's buried somewhere inside their family tree. Hey, thanks for

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being a part of the conversation Welcome back to the forest.

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A couple of weeks ago on Forest Stories, we came

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across a pair of red workmen's gloves on the forest floor.

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I put them to the side, because somebody who would

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lose a nice pair of gloves like that is going

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to have blisters on their hands in the day's ahead

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if they don't find their gloves. But then again, we

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are the society that will instantly return to Amazon and

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or Walmart and we'll buy more red gloves that we

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can put on our workmen's fingertips so that we don't

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get those blisters. Two weeks have gone by, and those

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gloves have now been moved from the gutter that I

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put them on because it's concrete and so they wouldn't

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get all mixed up in the weeds and the tall

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grasses of this forest floor. Today they're on something else

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of higher value, in the higher places. And the thing

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is is that they're still looking at you, wondering, hey

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are you mother? Do you remember that children's book are

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you My Mother? Wasn't it a gosling that was running

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around asking every animal in the farmyard, hey are you

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my mother? And I do look at things like that,

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such as the red workman's gloves, wondering are you my owner?

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Are you my owner? Are you the one that once

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had me inside the cab of their pickup or in

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the warmth of their back pocket? Are you my mother?

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I think of that often when I walk through this beautiful,

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beautiful forest, when I see the baby squirrels, the baby fawn.

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There are many times that I see dough with two

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and three babies. You didn't have three babies. Did one

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of these fawn walk up to you inside this forest

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and ask you? Are you my mother? Why? Yes, I

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am your mother today, and today I will protect you,

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I will guide you, I will make sure that you

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have the right encouragement as well as nourishment. Yeah, today

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I am your mother. Somewhere along this deer trail that

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will walk upon you will have to meet up with

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who your mother really is, if she is still with us,

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Because you know how man is, and you know the

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walk in the way of the coyote. They're not asking

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that question are you my mother? Other things that come

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to mind when it comes to these workmen's gloves, red

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in color, very bright, a man probably getting blisters on

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his fingers, or on the very tips of his fingers

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from having to type into the computer screen to order more.

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But it reminds me of the old saying goody two shoes.

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Do you remember that? Do you realize that came from

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a story back in the eighteen hundreds about an orphaned

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girl who had only one shoe and then somebody, somebody

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gifted her with two shoes. So therefore she would walk

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around telling that story, and she was a goodie two

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shoe in the way that you hear goodie two shoes today,

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because over the years and man's evil changing ways, they

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created a different story of goodie two shoes somebody who

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was better than and yet back in the eighteen hundreds,

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in this story, that young orphaned girl was never better than,

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but she was very excited about having two shoes rather

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than just one. And I feel the same story inside

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this forest with this red pair of workmen's gloves, somebody

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is without gloves. Will somebody come along and pull these

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red gloves workmen's gloves into their life? But will they

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treat it as the original story of the Goodye two

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shoes because they needed those gloves? Or will they be

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a goody goody two shoes, because it's something to add

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to their arsenal of tools when they've already had too many.

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Inside the chain, A lot can be learned while you're

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walking through a forest from the mothers the dough that

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have three fawn. How is it even feasibly possible? When

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I grew up in Montana and Wyoming and you took

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the bum sheep away from the mothers so they could

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be fed, It was the pop bottles, the soda bottles.

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We would fill it with warm, fresh milk from the

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cattle and give it to the bombs. We didn't see

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sheep with three lambs. What we saw was sheep with

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one lamb, and the bums were over there in the shed.

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The man took care of the bombs with that fresh milk.

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Who will take care of the red gloves the workmen's gloves?

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Will we identify the bear man's hands that now have

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blisters even if they are looking for them a new

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pair on Amazon or Walmart dot com. There's always story

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around us. There's always somebody needing something around us. There's

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always something that is missing a human being nearby. But

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will we find them and a human being that is

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missing them? Do they see them, or are they blinded

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by the secondary story of Goodie Goody two shoes. Hi Marl,

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thanks for being a part of the conversation.