A Swarm of Sheriffs

Dateline: Thur 30 July. You may ask yourself: who is this deputy sheriff and why does she look so angry as she pounded on the back kitchen door?

So I’m digging back into the archives to tell about this unusual development from the summer. It was an evening that, as bedtime approached, the pooches were getting their last run around the driveway and yard before heading in for the night. We had just gotten them to the crates, and the front doorbell was ringing, and the back door was getting knocked on, and then the back doorbell was ringing.

As I discovered later, after looking at the security video, the property was swarmed by deputies from the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office.

This was during the International Black Theatre Festival, which it’s an honor for Winston-Salem to host every other year, and there is always a heavy presence of law enforcement while it’s happening. Apparently, these deputies had either spotted or had reported to them that a drone was flying over what they said was “restricted airspace” over downtown, and they were absolutely certain that we were the ones doing it.

I could only laugh. I don’t even play video games, much less have a remote control for drone flying over places that no drones are supposed to be flown. The angry deputy at the back door could not betray her disappointment that she had not marched straight up to the scofflaw’s doorstep, and I’ll tell you: she wasn’t very nice at all. But the bearded gent who talked to me at the front was perfectly decent. I had to laugh again when they asked if I knew of any neighbors who had drones. We ain’t that kind of neighborhood, as I made clear when rattling off the catalogue of who actually dwells on this block.