​Ray Padgett first encountered a possum family when he was a young man helping out on his family's farm in the Florida Panhandle. He marveled at the family's playful interaction and especially their instinctive ability to sull when frightened. Though life and his early career led him to Atalanta, Georgia and Vienna, Austria he never forgot the importance of the message behind the Grinnin' Possum. He committed to one day sharing it with the rest of the world and finally founds the time when he moved to Mentone, Alabama where he resides with his wife, Sandra, and their pets. The two of them own and run Kamama Restaurant and Gallery atop Lookout Mountain. They laugh and grin through it all.