The guy coming toward me on the sidewalk is clearly not pagan.

“Hey, your skirt is torn,” he ingenouses, friendly-wise.

Well, he's half-right. My Utilikilt opens over the leg. In this breeze, with a cooler hefted up onto my shoulder, I'm probably showing a little more thigh than is generally considered polite.

“I hate it when that happens,” I ingenouse back.

He gives me the eye-over: boots, kilt, petroglyph hoodie, torc, baseball cap. Standard-issue pagan festival dress.

“You here with a group?” he asks.

“Convention,” I say.

“Which one?” he asks.

Oh well: in for a penny, in for a pound. I set down the cooler.

“Paganicon,” I say.

“Spell that?” he asks.

“P-A-G-A-N-I-C-O-N,” I say. “It's a pagan convention.”

“Oh,” he says, not unfriendly. “Are you guys, like, devil-worshipers or something?”

Oh gods. Time for a little public relations management.

“More like Nature-worshipers,” I say, gesturing toward the woods across the street.

“So 'pagan' means 'worshiper'?” he asks.

A favorable omen: he's listening and thinking, both.

“Actually, it comes from a Latin word that means 'country,'” I answer. “Back when the New Religion came, the cities converted first. Meanwhile, out in the country, we were still sacrificing to Zeus.”

He looks thoughtful.

“Do you worship Zeus?” he asks.

“Not personally,” I say, “but I know folks that do.”

He quirks his head.

“But Zeus doesn't exist,” he says.

“Depends on what you mean by Zeus,” I reply. “To the people I know, it's just another word for Heaven.”

There's a pause. Time to redirect.

“So, where do your people come from in the Old Country?” I ask.

“Bohemia...Poland...a few from Ireland,” he says, a little surprised at what at first seems a non sequitur. “We don't pay much attention to that kind of thing nowadays.”

“Well, what your ancestors were doing back in the Old Country 1000 years ago, we're still doing here and now,” I tell him.

I've made my point and, I hope, brought it home to him. It's been a good, honest exchange.

I bend down, pick up the cooler, and put it back on my shoulder.

“Well, happy Spring,” I say.

“Yeah, you too,” he returns, and I head out to the parking lot to finish loading up.