This is a tale about the impact of Wal-Mart, the power of the Internet and the influence of the media. It's a story about one man's quest to find his true calling in life.

At the center of it all is the world's largest gummy bear.

It begins in the early 90s, when Derek Lawson, now 41, was working as a producer at a TV station in Winston-Salem. He wasn't making much money and decided to go back to school to learn how to be a physical therapist.

He did that for awhile but that began to wear on him, too. He was working with patients who had suffered brain injuries.

"I took it home with me. ...It pained me so much that I had to get out of that," he said.

In 2003, a company that had a chain of candy shops in North Carolina was selling them off. They could not compete with Wal-Mart's candy prices, plus they were being hurt by the low-carb craze, Lawson said.

He and his brother decided to pool their money and buy one of the shops, in Wilmington.

The first order of business was reversing the store's fate.

"We had to have something Wal-Mart didn't have," Lawson said. "We said, 'Let's make the world's largest gummy worm.' "

Their plans evolved to gummy bears -- the molds were less expensive.

"We checked with Guinness and found out that there was no real record so anything we made was going to be a new category and a new record," Lawson said.

A customer bought a giant gummy bear for his girlfriend -- a reporter for a Wilmington TV station who recognized a quirky story when she saw one. The story got picked up across the country. Sales exploded.

Recently Lawson sold his store in Wilmington and bought another one the chain was selling off -- at Crabtree Valley Mall. Lawson took control of that store, Popalops, on Aug. 15.

But you don't have to travel to the mall -- you can go to www.candyship.com.

That's the rest of the story. Through his Web site, Lawson has sold the giant bears around the world. Even celebrities have bought them, he said, though he did not want their names used.

"The days of brick and mortar stores ... with the Internet, those days are gone," Lawson said.

Lawson has found his calling. Is this a great country or what?