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"I roll my eyes and say: 'Yeah, right!'

"'No, Meredith. I mean it. Don't come back unless you've wrestled the bear,' he repeats.

"I search his face for some indication he's joking. He isn't. He wants a first-person story on wrestling a bear. No point arguing.

"Ever the trouper, I head home and change into jeans, all the while trying to psych myself up. 'How bad could it be?' I ask myself. 'Other folks have done this and they're still walking around.'

"I meet Duane Hall, one of our photographers, at the ring. We're the first there, so I don't have to wait long for my turn. The bear is declawed and muzzled, thank God. The trainer is feeding him these big orange circus peanut candies to dim his appetite. The beast eyes me with annoyance, not hunger.

"The trainer leads me into the ring and sets the bear and me into the beginning wrestler position, then tells me to try to stand the bear up. I try. But the bear is big and strong and has had enough. Pretty soon I'm flying around like a rag doll, then down on my back praying hard. All the while Duane was snapping pictures.

"The whole thing took a few seconds but it seemed like an eternity.

"Then it was Duane's turn. He was a country boy and full of determination. He actually stood the bear up. I snapped his picture doing it. But then the bear took over and took Duane down, too.

"Back at the office, I banged out the story on my computer terminal. I was almost finished when Alfred Hamilton, who was above Cole in the editor firmament, stopped to see what I was doing. He read the first few lines of my story and pronounced flatly: 'We're not running that.'"

"'Wait a minute. I wrestled a bear for this. What do you mean we're not running it?"

"You're selling plywood," he responded. "We're not running it. One of these days you'll be glad it didn't run.'

I'm still not sure I agree with that. But I take some satisfaction that it lives on in newsroom lore."

Update: I finally scrounged up the photographic evidence. View the picture here.