Mama Bear Goes Running

I turned into an extreme "mama bear" while running tonight. As I was heading out the door, one of the neighbor boys was riding his little motorized bike up and down the street. It's a fairly loud bike, but he generally rides it for 5 minutes at a time. By the time you realize you keep hearing the bike, he's done riding it. He zoomed down the street and was heading back down towards me. While this young boy is just minding his business, having a little bit of fun after a day at school, there is a man down the street yelling, "Hey!!! Come back here!!" I am horrified as I see this HUGE man yelling at this boy. This boy turned around in front of his own house, and actually went back to see what this man had to tell him. He gets to the man and turns off his bike motor, when the man starts cussing at this boy and telling him to get his $*@@(*#@&%)@*##($@$ noisemaker off the street! I was HORRIFIED!!! I started crossing over the street and told this man "Hey, there's no need to yell at him, he's just a kid!", which didn't stop him from yelling, so I repeated myself, "He's just a kid! There's really no need to yell." The man then turns around and walks back into his house. This sweet boy, who has just been completely disrespected, hangs his head and goes back home. I was somewhat in shock by what I had just seen, and started out on my run. By the time I had gone half a mile, I was contemplating turning around and going to his house to make sure he was ok.

A mile into the run I called James, and told him what I had seen, and asked him if he thought it would be inappropriate to go knock on the neighbor boys door and talk to his parents to make sure he was okay. James and I decided it would be okay to do, so the rest of the run I was going over in my head what I would say. I just kept thinking about how I would feel if a complete stranger treated my son that way. This boy was talked to in a way that not even a grown adult should be talked to. He was completely disrespected, but maintained his composure and was very respectful of this man who was yelling at him.

When I got back to our street I stopped at the neighbors house and knocked on the door. The boy answered the door, and I asked if his mom was home. She was and she came out to the front porch. I told her what I saw, and told her that I hoped her son was okay. I let her know that I thought her son was very respectful of this man who had no respect for her son. She told me she was ready to go knock on every door in the neighborhood until she found this man so she could give him a piece of her mind. Talk about mama bear!! However, she decided to be a good example to her son and allow herself some time to cool off before she goes tearing down all the doors in the neighborhood.

When I got home I was telling James about everything that went down. He knew exactly who the guy was...and he's probably the biggest guy on the street (James also guessed what he was wearing, I have a very observant husband!). James was kinda surprised that a young boy would go back towards this huge man who was yelling at him. I am pretty surprised that I crossed the street and starting telling this man (who is probably a foot taller than me, and surely weighs 150 pounds more than I do), to back off. Mama Bear for sure!!

And now, this mama bear needs some ice cream. Bears like ice cream, right?

PS-I just googled "running mama bear picture" cause I thought it would be fun to have a picture for this blog post. A picture of Sarah Palin came up. Weird.