How I almost died in First grade!

During the summer, specifically July 7th, my birthday, a wild animal appeared near my house right next to my party! This happened when I was in 1st grade, still very innocent, as my classmates were too. I had always wanted to pet a deer, or a wild animal because I thought they were so fluffy and adorable. My dream came true, on July 7th, 2009 when a baby bear, a cub, was wondering on the outskirts of my house. Now, I live right next to a golf course, and I'm also surrounded by a forest in my backyard. In the golf course, there is a huge supply of garbage cans for bears to ravage through.

For my party, I invited all of my class, which is about 30 friends and some relatives for the day. First, we would play on the slip n' slide that my dad would construct form nothing, then go on the bouncy castle, and finally finish the day off with the pinata! But, an unexpected occurrence happened as we were playing truth or dare, and prepping to impale the pinata. It was the cutest and most captivating sight, any of us first graders had ever seen! It was a small and fuzzy baby black bear. It seemed hurt, so I dared one of my classmates to pet it, but then all of us pet it instead because we couldn't resist its charming face! As soon as we all started to sprint towards the cub my parents screamed like hell to get us back. My dad cried out, "Get back here! Bears don't play nice! Nick!". He screamed so loud that you could see a vain in his neck pop out so far, you would think it was out of his body. Thankfully, one of my other relatives stopped all 30 of us from reaching the bear. Well, I wasn't so thankful back then, in fact, I gave my parents the silent treatment for over a week because I couldn't live out my fantasy. But, later during the week, the Rockaway Animal Control made an announcement in the Sparta Independent saying that a "Ravenous cub terrorized many in the Skyview Dr. Golf Course." Because the bear was injured, it was a threat to humans because it was scared, had no mother, and felt it had to defend itself from everyone and everything. 

If I or one of my friends had come any closer to the bear, we could have been in the hospital or worse. As a kid, this freaked me out because I had to realize that not everything in the world was pure, happy, fun, or joyful. There was fear, pain, loss, and worry everywhere and that was when I started to look at the world from a different perspective. A more "mature" perspective you could say.