Life’s Funny

Chop House

The sport of axe-throwing lands in the Piedmont

By Maria Johnson

Tony Wohlgemuth, the wizard of Kersey Valley amusement park in Archdale, has noticed an invasion of sorts along our northern border: Lots of trends in entertainment attractions come from Canada.

Take escape rooms, the group puzzle solving exercises built around storylines. They were a craze up yonder before they migrated here.

Now, the maple-flavored sport of axe-throwing — think of it as darts on steroids — is sweeping the United States, mostly as a bar game because, you know, who can resist mixing sharp blades with alcohol?

In this area, Wohlgemuth was the first to take a whack at it, having opened his indoor and outdoor venues earlier this year, but his attractions are a bit of a throwback. They’re alcohol-free in keeping with Kersey Valley’s family-friendly atmosphere.

Just good, old-fashioned blade-chucking here. In case you’re picturing long-handled axes à la Paul Bunyan, be advised the instruments of the sport are more like hatchets. They’re 14 inches long and weigh about a pound each, so they’re fairly easy to hurl end-over-end.

“It’s kind of Medievalish. There’s something empowering about it,” says Wohlgemuth, who started Kersey Valley on his family farm in 1985 and has grown it — with the help of his wife Donna, and his business partner David Rundberg — into an entertainment hub, with escape rooms, laser tag, zip line, high-ropes course, a corn maize and — the real haymaker — Spookywoods in the fall.

Wohlgemuth constantly scans the horizon for new attractions, so his interest was piqued when he spotted axe-throwing on YouTube back in 2016.

He checked with his insurance guy.

“Forget about it,” came the reply.

Wohlgemuth kept his eye on axe-throwing. He watched competitions on ESPN and delved into the rules and regulations of WATL, the World Axe Throwing League.

In January, Wohlgemuth was getting ready to refresh his oldest escape room, which had rough-cut pine walls and smelled of pitch, when an idea struck him: what if they used the room for axe-throwing?

He measured to make sure two 12-foot lanes would fit — they would — and he called a Chicago outfit, Axe Insurance Co., that has carved a real niche, so to speak.

Yes, they said, they would cover participants and spectators at Kersey Valley.

Wohlgemuth prodded. Would they cover an outdoor axe-throwing experience with 11 stations along a trail once used for Segway tours?

Well, you’d be the first to try that, but shurrrrrrrrre, came the answer.

Wohlgemuth was in business. He opened his axe attractions in early February.

“We’ve been booked every Saturday since then,” he says.

Corporate groups, clubs, couples, friends and families have given the sport a whirl.

On a recent weekday afternoon, 33-year-old Meghan Williams of Charlotte, and 33-year-old Greg Collins of Greensboro, celebrated their second year of dating with a 90-minute trip to the axe room, which Greg heard about from a friend where he works at . . . wait for it . . . a hospital.

Truth is so much better than fiction.

During a safety session, they learned the basic rules of axe-throwing, which include, but are not limited to:

Never hand an axe to anyone.

Never throw an axe at anyone.

Never touch the sharp edge of an axe while asking, “Is it sharp?”

Their “Axe-pert Instructor” Sydney Parks explained the throwing motion: a chop from the elbow rather than a throw from the shoulder. The axe should make one rotation before hitting the target, which is painted on pine planks. Ideally, the top corner of the blade will sink into the soft wood.

After a few dozen practice throws, Greg and Meghan started their games. An electronic scoreboard kept track. Eighties music played in the background at their request.

Greg, who grew up throwing axes at stumps on a farm in Ohio, narrowly won the first game.

He celebrated a bullseye by vigorously ringing a brass bell on the wall.

“That was forceful,” Meghan observed dryly.

A couple of throws later, she stuck the bullseye, swaggered to the bell and gave it a hearty clang.

“What’s that, Collins?” She teased.

They laughed.

Women tend to do better than men at axe-throwing, says Wohlgemuth. “Men try to muscle it, but it takes more finesse than brute strength. It’s a great equalizer.”

In fact, the record for most points on the outdoor course is held by a 10-year-old boy. Kersey Valley recommends that children be 13 to play, but if a young ’un is able to handle it, they can fling an axe, too.

“It’s all in the technique,” says Wohlgemuth. “If the technique is right, it doesn’t take much strength.”

And that may be the kindest cut of all.  OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. To see a slow-motion video of Greg Collins in action, go to O.Henry’s Facebook page.

Life’s Funny

Are We Having Fun Yeti?

Putting Greensboro’s biggest foot forward

By Maria Johnson

Hanging out in the baggage claim area at Piedmont Triad International Airport, waiting for my son, I had the feeling that I was being watched, not an altogether unjustified feeling in an airport. Bully for keen security. But the surveillance felt immediate, as if someone were staring at me from close range, so I turned around and . . .

WHAA?!

It was Bigfoot, hulking beside the escalator. I’d heard reports of Sasquatch sightings in the area over the years, mostly in the Uwharrie Mountains south of Greensboro.

But I never expected to see the big guy at the airport, much less at baggage claim, even though airports are great melting pots. He was a hirsute chap — about 7 feet tall — with sympathetic eyes and a friendly, bemused expression. Not at all what I expected.

“Yeah, I fly only when I have to,” he seemed to say.

Honestly, I was charmed by this fiberglass fellow, but I was puzzled by his presence at the airport, especially when I realized he was part of an advertisement for a furniture showroom, International Manufacturers Showroom in High Point.

Presumably Biggie was one of many, um, home accessories available in the showroom; he was accompanied by a giant mirrored bass fiddle, a metal sculpture of two wading birds taking flight and a live-edge bar table with leather-topped stools. Standing in a slight crouch, Biggie appeared to be resting one cheek on a barstool.

In a way, he fit right in. I mean, hairy dudes on barstools aren’t exactly rare in airports, and neither is eye-catching art. Airports use all kinds of mosaics, fountains, mobiles, sculptures, and light-and-sound effects to entertain travelers and dress up the fact that they’re basically camping around a big driveway.

Advertisers — especially furniture manufacturers — get into the eyeball game, too, often putting their edgiest pieces on concourses. Around here, you can bet those displays are aimed at retailers, who stride by on their way to High Point Market, a twice-a-year event that’s rolling out the spring offerings this month.

Was I missing a Sasquatch trend for home and garden?

For answers, I turned to Ikea — and by that I mean a woman named Ikea, who works in the American Airlines baggage claim office, with a clear view to Biggie. She didn’t want to tell me her last name, but she didn’t mind sharing that, yes, she was there when the showroom installed Biggie about a year and a half ago.

“I was like, ‘Well . . . OK,” she says.

Since then, Biggie has become the star of baggage claim.

“People take pictures of it all the time, every day. They love that Sasquatch,” she says.

Some people take selfies with the beast, but more often, they snap group pics. People love to mug with Biggie.

“They’ll hug it or put their finger in its belly button — it’s an innie — or they’ll touch its nipples,” reports Ikea. “It’s got nipples.”

Indeed it does. And Ikea is not being disrespectful by referring to Biggie as “it.” Thanks to careful sculpting, Biggie’s gender is not clear.

Still, the creature exudes an undeniable animal magnetism, which is why, Ikea guesses, the showroom set up a velvet rope around Biggie not long ago — to cut down on intimate encounters.

Bingo, says George Eouse, the CEO of International Manufacturers Showroom.

“The airport was concerned we were getting a little too much interaction with our stuff,” says Eouse, who brainstormed with his team to create  attention-getting displays at PTI.

That’s when they settled on “the Yeti,” as Eouse calls it.

An Australian artist carved the original, he says. Weatherproof reproductions, like the one at the airport, are fabricated in the Philippines and imported by another of Eouse’s companies, one of more than 30 manufacturers represented in IMS showroom, across the road from Furnitureland South.

During furniture market, IMS is closed to the public. But outside of market dates, the public is welcome to buy market samples of exotic furniture, rugs and trophy pieces similar to Biggie.

“It’s actually a very popular item,” Eouse says, guessing that he has sold about 100 Biggies, at a wholesale price of $750 each, mostly to retailers. Who ends up owning them? You name it: Bigfoot groupies, clubs, people with a quirky sense of humor.

“We see people put them out in the tree lines,” Eouse says. “It’s not for everybody, but for someone with a unique sense of fun . . . I’ve had people to go berserk when they find out they’re able to own one.”

So don’t be surprised if you hear more reports of Biggie sightings, never mind a shrinking natural habitat. Whether in the flesh or in fiberglass, it seems, the legend has legs.

“He sells enough that he’s going to be around,” says Eouse. “He’s going to survive.”  OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Contact her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

Life’s Funny

Crying Time

The art of pre-infant bonding

By Maria Johnson

Dear Future Grandchild,

I realize it’s brazen of me to write this directly to you because — as far as I know from both of my unmarried sons — you don’t exist yet.

I say “as far as I know “ because I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if one of them walked in with a small child, and I said, “Who’s this?” and he said, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? This is your grandchild. My bad. I thought I texted you.”

So let’s just assume you’re an unborn angel — and able to read (It’s a big ask, but humor me.)

Here’s what I want you to know: I want to hold you, gush over you, coo in a whispery voice to you. But there’s something going around that might make that difficult for a while: bonding.

Feel free to spit up in heaven.

Here, according to several of my friends, is how it works:

1. Your parents tell us, your grandparents-to-be, that you are on the way.

2. We, your grandparents-to-be, are beside ourselves with joy because, let’s face it, this is why we had your parents: to be able to spend time with you, our grandchild, without the responsibility of parenting. It’s like winning the Powerball of Procreation. You’ll understand one day.

3. We, the grandparents-to-be, start buying toys, clothes and other accessories for you. We marvel at the advances in baby technology. For example, back in our day, we had radio-based nursery monitors. Now, cameras allow parents to watch you on their phones, which is . . . an improvement? We recall the story of a father of our generation who went golfing while his wife was away. He took the radio monitor (range: oh, 500 feet), finished his round, and heard no sign of trouble. Until that night. This story could be apocryphal. But it’s probably not.

4. The time of your arrival nears.

5. Bing! The email arrives.

6. We, your grandparents-to-be, say: “WHAT THE **** IS A POST-PARTUM PLAN?”

7. Sorry, we promised we wouldn’t curse around you.

8. Yes, it’s a detailed plan. For the first days, weeks, or even months of your life. It spells out who’s allowed to visit, when, and for how long. It lists permissible behaviors. Taking out the trash, washing dishes and doing laundry are highly encouraged. Pets, perfumes and pathogens are out. Holding you is negotiable. Kissing you is highly unlikely. Forget pushing your stroller (which probably carries a “No Touching” sign, no joke). Like high-schoolers after try-outs, we read the list hoping to make the varsity squad: Those allowed to see you at the hospital.

9. If we don’t make the team, we’ll say what we swore we’d never say because it makes us sound too much like our own parents: “This world is going to hell.”

10. See Number 7.

11. Distraught, we, your grandparents — OK, just me, your grandmother — turns to friends to see if any of them have experienced this phenomenon.

12. “Yes,” they say, “This world is going to hell.” Then they tell stories about “smash cakes,” which are first-birthday cakes designed to be smashed by babies for video purposes, then thrown away.

Fair warning: If your parents throw away a birthday cake that’s perfectly good — save a few claw marks — the videos will show this grandmother diving into the trash after it. Hahaha, my ass.

Oops. See Number 7.

Back to bonding. According to my sources, the goal of bonding is that your parents will feel (air quote) connected enough to meet your needs and so that you will not grow up to scream “IHATEYOUIHATEYOUIHATEYOU,” which, newsflash, you’re going to do anyway, but your parents don’t know this yet, so let’s not ruin the party.

The point here is that baby ducks imprint on their parents in a few days, but you’re a human, so this whole step-away-from-the-child thing seems like a bit much.

Understand, I get the drive to attach to your newborn. On the nights my boys were born, I held them in my hospital bed and studied them fiercely, memorizing their eyes, noses, hair, ears, fingers — everything, lest we take home a stuffed animal by mistake.

Such cementing is largely due to hormones, which also usher in postpartum crying jags. Been there, too.

I get how visitors at this point can grate.

I get how new parents want to do everything right.

I get that every generation changes how they do things.

I also understand that it’s nice to have a pair of loving, experienced hands take a squalling baby so you can get a nap, or a shower, or escape to Walmart, which can seem like a dream vacation, especially if your child has colic, a condition that causes babies to cry pretty much nonstop for the first three months of their lives, for no discernible reason.

Oh, didn’t I tell you? My bad. Colic runs in our family.

Seeya soon.

Granny

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Contact her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

Life’s Funny

Swan Lakes

A torrid romance for the bird-brained

By Maria Johnson

Hamilton and Euphemia were happy.

Until Rhett showed up.

How can there not be trouble when a Rhett shows up?

They all lived together for about a month. Everyone got along swimmingly, until . . . lust and jealousy busted out.

“I cannot tell you the violence,” says John Atkinson, a neighbor who witnessed the chaos first hand.

Hamilton and Rhett brawled out in the open. They pummeled each other. They tried to drown each other. They tangled so fiercely that another neighbor called Atkinson to say the brutal displays were upsetting her daughter. Couldn’t Atkinson do something?

He intervened. He helped Rhett to find a new place, a few streets over. Rhett was alone until . . . he found another lady. Her name was Scarlett.

C’mon. You knew it was coming.

At this point, I should probably tell you that the main actors in this drama — except for Atkinson — are swans. Specifically, they’re the swans of Hamilton Lakes, the woodsy west-Greensboro neighborhood that mushroomed in the 1950s and ‘60s.

At some point, someone decided that a pair of mute swans — so named because they’re relatively quiet compared to their louder cousins — would be a fine addition to the lakes. Mail-order swans and their offspring came and went, thanks mostly to foxes and snapping turtles. Various neighbors kept tabs on the long-necked birds. Eventually, the baton passed to Atkinson and his wife, Lee, who moved into the neighborhood in the late ’80s.

It made sense. The Atkinsons live right next to Lake Euphemia and the Jim King Pond, so they have a front-row seat for the swan drama. Plus John, a former bird hunter, has an enduring love of nature.

“God has created an unbelievable universe,” he says quietly.

He dived deeply into the swan life about six years ago, when a pair on Lake Euphemia hatched five cygnets. Fearing that snapping turtles would gobble the babies, John gathered up the chicks and took them to his house.

“I put them in the basement and made them a cardboard house, and put a light in there for them, and figured out what to feed them,” he says.

John exercised them in the vacant dog runs behind his house. He let them swim in the koi pond. One of the cygnets died. When the four survivors were big enough to fend for themselves, John installed them in the Jim King Pond. The biggest male, a.k.a. Big Boy, and the biggest female paired off and harassed the other two swans — John assumed both were females — to no end.

So John transplanted the two outliers to Lake Euphemia, where the sisters lived alone until . . . one of them turned out to be a male, which explained the territorial squabbles.

The expats became Mr. Hamilton and Miss Euphemia, and the two swan couples lived side-by-side in the adjoining waters for years. Until . .  . Big Boy’s mate died, leaving him alone on the Jim King Pond.

One day, a couple of months ago, Lee Atkinson announced that three swans were on the pond.

“What the hell?’ said John.

Sure enough, Hamilton and Euphemia had returned, looking for revenge from the days when they were bullied.

Hamilton and Big Boy rumbled.

Hamilton won and claimed the pond. Later, he smacked down Rhett, a rescue who evacuated over to Lake Hamilton to live with Scarlett. Incidentally, Scarlett was found dead not long ago. There are whispers of a vixen in the shadows. So, Rhett is alone again, but friends are trying to hook him up.

Meanwhile, Big Boy lives the bachelor life on Lake Euphemia. Everybody has heard that swans mate for life, and as far as John can tell, that’s true.

Once paired, they remain coupled. They swim side by side. If they’re separated, they call to each other with lonely coos.

If one of their babies dies, they mourn.

If a competitor shows up, especially during mating season, they fight bitterly.

Courtship is elegant, often involving intertwining like dancers in a Tchaikovsky ballet.

It’s hard not to project human emotions onto their behavior. John reminds himself that they’re not people, and yet — he feels for Big Boy. He has heard that widowed swans will accept a new mate. He knows a man Down East who sells mute swans, and he’s thinking of ordering a female.

He goes outside, scoops chicken feed into a bucket and walks to the edge of Lake Euphemia. Big Boy watches from a bank 20 yards away.

John approaches slowly, talking in soft tones.

Big Boy lumbers to the base of a tree and settles on a pad of grass and pine needles. He picks gently around the edges.

To Atkinson, the mound looks like the beginning of a nest.

Spring is almost here.  OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Contact her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

Life’s Funny

Baked into Memory

A familiar treat bridges generations

 

By Maria Johnson

“Do you make baklava?”

It’s a question I get fairly often from people who know I’m half Greek. But, seeing as how the Greek part came from my father, who did very little of the cooking when I was growing up, the answer is no.

Or it was no, until a few weeks ago.

That’s when I tied on an apron with 80-year-old Joanne Macropoulos, a stalwart at Dormition of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Church in Greensboro.

For more than 40 years, as long as the church has had its annual Greek Festival, Joanne has helped to make and sell the pastries, a huge draw and moneymaker at the three-day wingding.

You know what I mean if you’ve inched along in the pastry line, waiting for your chance to salivate and shell out for the confections — the densely sweet baklava; the kourambiedes topped with powdered sugar; the twisted koulourakia; the shredded-wheat-look-alike kataifi; the nut-topped spice cookie melomakarona: and the wickedly moist yogurt cake, yaourtopeta.

These delicacies brought Joanne and me together. Sort of.

Technically, I met her in the intensive-care unit after my dad had a major stroke three years ago. But pastries, in a roundabout way, led to that connection.

Here’s how it happened: My dad loved the Greek festival. Specifically, he loved the pastries at the Greek festival. And therefore — even though he and my Methodist mom didn’t attend church there after they retired in Greensboro — our family’s attendance at the festival was mandatory.

Every year, about the time we finished our Athenian chicken and Spartan vegetable plates in the fellowship hall, Daddy would clear his throat and say, as if the thought had just occurred to him, “Would anybody like some pastries?”

This was our cue to nod, and say “Sure” and offer to buy them, at which point he would wave us off in an I-got-this gesture and shuffle off to the pastry table, where he’d drop a few phrases in Greek and wait until he got a nibble from another Greek speaker. He always hooked someone.

Pretty soon, he’d be telling some poor dear pastry lady, as succinctly as possible — which was not very — about how he came here from Greece as a kid and, I’m fast-forwarding here, about the amazing accomplishments of his entire family who were, in short, brilliant.

That’s when he’d start pointing at us from across the room. He’d wave. The pastry lady would wave. We’d waved back. And he’d return to the table with boxes, plural, of pastries. He was so happy in those moments.

This went on for 20 years.

Until the stroke.

The next morning, as my dad struggled to respond, we couldn’t tell how much he comprehended. I knew one thing for sure: The first language in would be the last language out.

I drove to the Greek church, where we’d had so many good times over pastries, and threw myself on the mercy of the priest, Father Thomas Newlin, who didn’t know me from Eve’s housecat.

Still, I asked: Did he know anyone, preferably a native of Greece, who could come to the hospital to talk and pray in Greek? He thought he did. I gave him the room number.

The next day, Joanne appeared. I’m not exaggerating when I say she looked like an angel. She was white-haired, erect, serene — one of those people who shines with a light from within. We roused my dad.

Joanne stepped up, touched his shoulder and spoke to him in Greek. Then she prayed. My dad — who before the stroke found a quiet place every morning and evening and prayed by himself, always in Greek  — looked at her through heavy eyes. His right hand, the only hand he could move, trembled over his chest. He was trying to cross himself.

Joanne visited again, each time bearing pastries for our family, who kept a bedside vigil until Daddy died, at age 95, a couple of weeks later. Joanne came to the funeral, this lady who didn’t really know us, but somehow did. We knew her, too.

We continued to see her at Greek festivals — it seemed like a tradition we needed to carry on — but more often, Joanne and I ran into each other at the Spears Family YMCA, where we both work out.

One day, I stopped her in the hallway. We chatted for a while, and then I blurted out:

“Would you teach me to make baklava?”

I’m not sure where that came from. Maybe I was channeling my Greek yiayia and namesake, though I’m pretty sure she knew how to make baklava. Maybe I wanted to feel closer to my Greek heritage, especially with my dad being gone, and I figured the shortest path was in learning to make a crowd-pleaser that screams “GREEK!”

Or maybe I knew, from time spent in the kitchen with my Alabama-born grandmother, and my mother, and my husband, and our two sons, that if you really want to bond with someone, you cook with them. You create together.

In any case, I was relieved at Joanne’s reply:

“Sure!”

I arrived at her door with two pounds of butter.

She handed me an apron. “It says ‘Greece’ on it and everything,” she said. We laughed. I’d take every advantage I could get.

She showed me the basics. How to blend sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves with ground English walnuts; how to paint a heavy metal baking pan with butter, then layer the leaf-like phyllo dough, which she orders in rolls from New York.

Every sheet gets brushed with melted butter.

Every two sheets, you sprinkle the walnut mixture.

Phyllo. Butter. Phyllo. Butter. Nuts.

Phyllo. Butter. Phyllo. Butter. Nuts.

On a nearby table, a plastic-spine recipe book from the Greek church in Charleston, S.C., was laid open to her favorite baklava recipe.

She didn’t need it.

I asked how long had she been making baklava.

She looked at me with the mock-shock expression I’d seen my dad wear so many times.

“I was born knowing how to make baklava!” she said.

As we talked, a CD of bouzouki music played in the background, and Joanne told me her story: How she was born in the village of Karpenisi, 180 miles northwest of Athens; how her mother died when she was 7; how her older sister passed up a chance to come to America to live with family, but Joanne, then 14, jumped at the opportunity. She figured she’d have a better wardrobe here.

“I have to have more than two pairs of shoes,” she announced to her family, who bought their children one pair of shoes for the summer and one for the winter.

Anyone who knows the sylphlike Joanne, and how stylishly she dresses, would not be surprised to hear her motivation for immigrating. Neither would they be shocked to learn that she traveled alone, on an ocean liner, for 15 days, until she met family in New Jersey and traveled by car to another village: Burlington, as in North Carolina, NC.

It was 1952. There was no Greek church in Burlington, so her family came to the Greensboro church. That’s where Joanne met and married George Macropoulos, who was the son of the priest, thanks to an Eastern Orthodox rule that allows men to marry before they become priests.

“Have you ever heard the saying that the son of a priest is the grandson of the devil?” Joanne said with a twinkle in her eye.

She and George — who died in 2003 — had two sons, Nick and Chris, who have done very well, as have Joanne’s three grandchildren, Alex, Christina and Stephen, who are, in short, “brilliant.”

Into the oven went the pan of baklava and, as we waited, out came the pictures and stories. I nodded in recognition. I was in hauntingly familiar territory. It occurred to me that Joanne, at some point, probably had met my dad at the church’s pastry table and listened to him gush about his family. Sitting at her kitchen table, it felt like we were closing a giant, invisible circuit.

The other feeling that grabbed me floated in Joanne’s soft vowels, slightly gargled in the back of her throat, a sound I cannot make no matter how I try to pronounce certain Greek words. I had not heard those sounds since my dad died.

I wanted to cry. At soft rolling vowels. Want to know how weird and powerful memory can be? There you go.

The smell of butter and cinnamon and the sight of golden phyllo said the pan was ready to come out of the oven, cool, be drenched in simple syrup of water, sugar and lemon juice and left to absorb the sweetness overnight. Joanne explained how, if you pour the syrup over a spoon to break the stream, no place in the pan becomes sodden.

It was the kind of knowledge that lurks between the lines of a recipe, where the secrets of cooking, and so much more, live. For this kind of knowledge, you have to show up ready to work in the kitchen, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

And the baklava we made?

It was, in short, brilliant.   OH

Contact Maria at ohenrymaria@gmail.com. This year’s Greek Festival is scheduled for September 28-30.

The Bear Facts

By Maria Johnson

You’d be amazed at the walk-ins we get here at the O.Henry office on Banking Street. We get people wanting to talk to Astrid Stellanova about her horoscopes; people wanting to see the editor of Our State magazine (?!); people wanting to mail a first-class package (we’re next to The Pack-N-Post). Mostly, we get people who want to pitch story ideas, which is great. Recently, there was a thud at the door, followed by a low rumble. We figured it was someone wanting to know if he could park in our lot while he ate at the hot new burger joint around the corner. But when we opened the door, there was a black bear.

Here is a transcript of the conversation:

OH: Can I help you?

B: Do you mind if I come in?  It’s getting a little hot out here, if you know what I mean.

OH: Huh?

B: (Looking over shoulder): Animal control. They’ve been tailing me all day.

OH: Sure, come in. Can I get you something?

B: I know it’s trite, but do you have any honey?

OH: I don’t think so. How about some agave syrup?

B: Sure. I like to try new things. I ate at a Thai dumpster last night. Tore me up. The sriracha, I guess.

OH: (Handing over syrup) Here you go. How can we help you?

B: I want you to write a story.

OH: About . . . ?

B: People. Every year, when my bros and I ramble through here, we see more people. Where do all of these people come from?

OH: Oh, they migrate here from all over.

B: That’s what I hear — they follow the highways into town.

OH: Is that a problem?

B: It didn’t used to be, but this is getting crazy. This time of year, we see people all the time. Take this morning — I was nibbling berries by a creek. I looked up, and there was a pack of people. A den, whatever you call them.

OH: What were they doing?

B: Just staring at me. It was unnerving. I thought they might attack.

OH:  What did you do?

B: Whaddya, nuts? I froze. I thought about running, but then I remember that you humans love to chase things. So I walked away very slowly. No disrespect, but you never know what humans are going to do.

OH: Have you ever tried scaring people off by making some kind of noise? Maybe standing up to make yourself look bigger?
B: Are you kidding? You know what happens when young black males like me get assertive.

OH: Hmm. By the way, what are y’all doing in these parts?

B: (Winking). Oh, you know. Looking for honey. No luck so far.

OH: Guess not. The state wildlife people say that breeding females have been confirmed as close by as Forsyth and Stokes counties, but not in Guilford County. Not yet, anyway. If anyone has photos of a mama bear and cubs in the Piedmont, they’d like to see it.

B: Me, too.

OH: . . . Because if we have breeding females around here, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of you guys from May through July.

B: Got that right. But look, we don’t enjoy urban life. Here’s what happens: We young bears get driven out of our home ranges by the older, dominant males. We go looking for new ranges and new females, so naturally we cruise the creeks and rivers at night. We have a few too many acorns, lap up a little too much branch water, and boom! Come sunup, we’re in the city. Suddenly, we’re on TV. Whoa! And I’ll tell you something else, it’s happening more often.

OH: Yeah, well, the number of people in this area is growing, and your populations to the east and west of the Piedmont are growing, so we’re bound to intersect more often.

B: Makes me want to build a damn wall.

OH: You could try it, but I doubt it would work. Besides, you admit that once you’re in the city, you raid trash cans and birdfeeders. Heck, you even eat pet food.

B: Have you ever tried gluten-free dog food?

OH: No.

B: It’s not bad. Hey, if you don’t want me on your porch, don’t keep kibble or hot young sows there. Seriously, though, I don’t want to get all up in your grill . . . mmmm . . . grillll . . . Where was I? Oh, yeah, I don’t want to get all up in your business anymore than you want me to. This morning, before I left my thicket, I actually looked around for people. Can you imagine?

OH: So what made you think you’d be safe at O.Henry?

B: Didn’t you dress up like a bear to promote A Walk in the Woods for the library’s One City, One Book campaign last year?

OH: Uh, yeah.

B: (Pounds his heart with his paw).

OH: OK, here’s my advice. Mind your own business. Generally speaking, humans won’t bother you if you don’t bother them. Sooner or later, they’ll move on. Just be patient.

B: You sounds like a Berenstain.

OH: Sorry for moralizing. Just be cool.

B: Whatever. Can I ask you something?

OH: Sure.

B: Which way to that burger joint dumpster?

OH: You like cheeseburgers?

B: Do I go in the woods?  OH

O.Henry maintains an open-door policy, just BYO honey. To learn more about bears, go to ncwildlife.org/bears. If you have a picture of a female bear with cubs in the Piedmont, contact the district wildlife biologist at jason.allen@ncwildlife.org.