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Speaker 1: Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,

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Speaker 1: your host, narrator and author. We hear at the ten

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Speaker 1: minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales are

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Speaker 1: rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to

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Speaker 1: pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human

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Speaker 1: condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.

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Speaker 1: This week we meet Ralph. Ralph's a good old country

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Speaker 1: boy who epitomizes that old cliche never judge a book

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Speaker 1: by its cover. Ralph and Red Yeah, yeah, yes, sir,

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Speaker 1: mister Rucker. I'll be right over. Just got to feed

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Speaker 1: the hogs and Bertha calf. How many flybys you say?

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Speaker 1: You got just a pair in the front pond. Ralph

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Speaker 1: landed maybe half hour ago. You don't say, well, we'll

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Speaker 1: be eating good tonight. Haven't had a full belly in weeks.

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Speaker 1: Ralph replaces the receiver on the hook of the big

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Speaker 1: old black rotary phone. He had one of those fancy

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Speaker 1: smartphones for a few years, but the damn thing was

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Speaker 1: constantly dinging and donging and chiming and blasting him with news.

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Speaker 1: He didn't give a shit about and reminding him he

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Speaker 1: hadn't taken a dump in days. So he took a

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Speaker 1: sledgehammer to the serenity Killer and in one mighty swing,

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Speaker 1: smashed it to Smithereens. You want to reach Ralph, call

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Speaker 1: him on the rotary, or, better yet, pull on down

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Speaker 1: the drive and chew the fat for a while. Ralph

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Speaker 1: likes nothing better than chewing the fat. The rich folks

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Speaker 1: who came up into these ancient Pennsylvania hills to escape

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Speaker 1: COVID and other maladies of urban life like to imagine

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Speaker 1: Ralph as a sort of barely civilized mountain man, with

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Speaker 1: his overalls and muddy boots and leathery face and awe

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Speaker 1: shucks manner and country witticisms. When asked if it'll rain,

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Speaker 1: Ralph might quip, oh, it will, unless, of course it doesn't.

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Speaker 1: Or when asked if he'd ever been married, these urban

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Speaker 1: squatters are a nosy bunch, he's been known to answer,

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Speaker 1: I was, yeah, I was, but I had to put

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Speaker 1: her down on account of she came up lame. This

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Speaker 1: kind of retort typically conjures up chuckles fraught with uncertainty

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Speaker 1: from the newcomers, which suits Ralph fine. This morning, He

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Speaker 1: doesn't have hogs to feed or a calf to birth,

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Speaker 1: just a chorus to finish for his new tune that

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Speaker 1: he thinks he might call love in the rear view mirror.

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Speaker 1: I fed her at the cracker barrel, and she invited

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Speaker 1: me back to her place, had ourselves of fine time

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Speaker 1: we did, and in the morning I skidaddled without a trace.

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Speaker 1: Call it love, love in the rear view mirror, call

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Speaker 1: it love, or maybe just call it lust. I had

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Speaker 1: love once, baby, and I gotta tell you it ain't

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Speaker 1: nothing you can trust. Yeah, Ralph, he sort of likes it,

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Speaker 1: sings it, hums it, writes it down, knows it needs

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Speaker 1: some work. A couple more verses, tries a few different

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Speaker 1: chord progressions, thinks hell thinks he might just be on

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Speaker 1: to something. But whatever it might be doesn't show itself

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Speaker 1: right then, and Ralph doesn't push it, doesn't force it.

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Speaker 1: Damn near thirty years writing tunes, he's learned to let

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Speaker 1: things come as they will. Doesn't do a goddamn bit

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Speaker 1: of good. To try and force nothing. As a young fella,

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Speaker 1: he'd forced himself on the girls, didn't do no good.

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Speaker 1: Tried to force a square peg into a round hole,

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Speaker 1: didn't do no good. Tried to force a preacher to

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Speaker 1: admit there weren't no heaven or hell didn't do no good.

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Speaker 1: So he knocked off the forcing and just started living

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Speaker 1: sweet and easy, no jiving or striving. Pulled out of

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Speaker 1: his snazzy digs on the upper west side, overlooking Riverside Park,

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Speaker 1: and hauled ass up here to his grandfather's old stone

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Speaker 1: house in these ancient Pennsylvania hills, where he'd spent summers

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Speaker 1: as a boy, swimming in the pond with the snappers

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Speaker 1: and chopping the heads off rattlers, and learning guitar and

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Speaker 1: fiddle from the old boy while he sipped Doctor Pepper

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Speaker 1: and his grandpappy lukewarm cans of Iron City. Ralph stands

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Speaker 1: steps away from the piano and heads for the door.

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Speaker 1: Come on, Red, come on boy, let's go shoot us

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Speaker 1: some skycarp Red, a good sized six year old redbone

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Speaker 1: coonhound with gonads the size of golf balls, still intact,

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Speaker 1: but with the manners of a fine English gentleman, hops

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Speaker 1: down off the sofa, stretches some, and follows Ralph out

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Speaker 1: the door. They mosey across the weedy lawn to Ralph's

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Speaker 1: thirty year old half ton toyo to pickup with original

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Speaker 1: paint and original V six engine. Ralph bought it for

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Speaker 1: a song literally twenty years ago with a hair under

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Speaker 1: one hundred thousand miles on the odometer going to click

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Speaker 1: over to three hundred thousand soon with the original. Ralph

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Speaker 1: likes to brag, son of a bitch and clutch still operating,

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Speaker 1: sweet and easy, no jiving or striving. Ralph swings open

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Speaker 1: the door and Red bounds in and takes his seat.

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Speaker 1: Red always rides Shotgun unless he's wet, which he likely

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Speaker 1: will be soon, and then he rides and back. Ralph

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Speaker 1: and Red are absolutely the best of friends. They eat together,

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Speaker 1: and travel together, and sit around outside on the porch together,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes even sleep together when the old house grows chilly.

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Speaker 1: They can finish each other's sentences and read each other's minds. Ah.

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Speaker 1: I like Dayton girls, Ralph likes to say. I like

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Speaker 1: making them dinner and making them laugh and best of all,

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Speaker 1: making them howl at a full moon. But I like

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Speaker 1: living with dogs, especially this year redbone coonhound, best damn

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Speaker 1: dog I ever had. Ralphin Red head out the potholed driveway,

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Speaker 1: turn onto the County Road, go just far enough to

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Speaker 1: shift from second to third and then turn into Suffering

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Speaker 1: is optional acres the crazy ass name his part time neighbor,

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Speaker 1: Eddie Rucker, gave to his one hundred acre spread when

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Speaker 1: he bought her a few years back. Suffering is optional

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Speaker 1: is some kind of Buddhist buloney, but hey, probably better

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Speaker 1: than that Christian twaddle about suffering being the result of sin.

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Speaker 1: The only damn sin, Ralph says to Red as he

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Speaker 1: climbs out of the truck to open the gate, is

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Speaker 1: believing some other dudes bullshit. Red licks his going ads

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Speaker 1: in agreement. Ralph swings open the gate and they proceed

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Speaker 1: down the smooth as a baby's bottom driveway. At the

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Speaker 1: man made pond in front of the big modern glass house,

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Speaker 1: Ralph stops the truck and turns off the motor. He

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Speaker 1: rolls down the window and reaches behind him for his

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Speaker 1: Remington seven hundred thirty ought six hanging in the gun

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Speaker 1: rack from the glove box. He extracts a handful of

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Speaker 1: thirty caliber AMMO and loads up. Ralph spots one Canada

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Speaker 1: goose waddling around on the grass on the far side

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Speaker 1: of the pond, and another one doing some fishing not

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Speaker 1: far off the near bank. After clearing his throat and

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Speaker 1: limbering up his shoulders, Ralph rests the barrel of the

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Speaker 1: Remington seven hundred on the window ledge, focuses the vortex

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Speaker 1: viper scope on the distant bird, takes dead aim at

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Speaker 1: the lower hind quarter so as not to blow the

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Speaker 1: bird to Kingdom come, and ever so gently squeezes the trigger.

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Speaker 1: Damn goose doesn't know what hit him, staggers around for

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Speaker 1: a while, and then falls over dead. The one in

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Speaker 1: the water gets it next, this pleasant enough feller ed

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Speaker 1: rucker from some snazzy Jersey suburb Buclia. He doesn't like

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Speaker 1: goose shit fouling his pristine acreage. He thinks this old

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Speaker 1: farm he bought during COVID so he wouldn't die in

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Speaker 1: the black plague is the flippin' Royal Botanical Gardens or something.

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Speaker 1: But hell, if Ralph knows one thing, it's that every

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Speaker 1: man and every woman, and really every living thing has

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Speaker 1: no choice but to live inside his or her own skin.

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Speaker 1: And besides, he's got unemployed and under employed buds in

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Speaker 1: this valley, living hand to mouth and eating gooseburgers is

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Speaker 1: a hell of a lot better than eating nothing at all.

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Speaker 1: Ralph reaches over and opens the passenger door. Red all aloud,

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Speaker 1: hops out, tears across the manicured lawn that looks like

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Speaker 1: it's been treated with Scott's triple action turf builder, and

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Speaker 1: leaps into the pond. Swims out to recover the booty,

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Speaker 1: and seconds later he's back on terra firma goose in mouth.

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Speaker 1: After a quick shake, he races around to the far

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Speaker 1: side of the pond and retrieves the second dead goose,

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Speaker 1: both geese secured. Red sprints back to the old pickup,

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Speaker 1: jumps up onto the bed, and drops the birds in

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Speaker 1: a bucket. And now look here comes Eddie Rucker down

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Speaker 1: the slope from the house at an easy amble, so

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Speaker 1: familiar to guys with crazy amounts of cash in their

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Speaker 1: checking accounts. Nice shooting, Ralph, he calls, all smiles. Excellent shooting.

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Speaker 1: I watched it from the window. Well. Ralph gives his best,

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Speaker 1: sweet and easy country nod. All the world's a stage, ed,

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Speaker 1: he says, quoting the board and all of us mere players,

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Speaker 1: with our entrances and exits, and with that bit of

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Speaker 1: profundity hanging in the late afternoon air. Ralph and Red

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Speaker 1: head on back from whence They've come, leaving Eddie to

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Speaker 1: scratch his ass and shake his noggin in sheer wonder. Hey,

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Speaker 1: thanks for listening to this original audio presentation of Ralph

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Speaker 1: and Red narrated by the author. You enjoy today's story,

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Speaker 1: please take a few seconds to rate, review, and subscribe

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Speaker 1: to this podcast, and then go to Thomas William Simpson

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Speaker 1: dot com for additional information about the author and to

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Speaker 1: view his extensive canon. The Ten Minute Storyteller is produced

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Speaker 1: by Andrew Pleiglici and Josh Colodney and as part of

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Speaker 1: the Elvis Duran Podcast Network in partnership with Iheartproductions. Until

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Speaker 1: next time, this is Bill Simpson, your ten Minute Storyteller,