Dana White, King of MMA

There was an incident with Dana one day that reminds me of a Mark Twain story,
probably because it involves a raft, in a river, in a small town and a group of young
boys. Two brothers who lived about eight houses up the street from us were, 13 and
14 years old, and a couple of smartasses. Dana was only eight, but he loved it when
they would play with him or let him hang out with them. They were always nice to
him and so I didn’t object.
One afternoon, Dana asked if he could go to the pool with the two brothers, they
weren’t going swimming; they were just going to hang out. I told the boys to be sure
they watched Dana and that I did not want them gone too late. They assured me he
would be safe and back soon, but Dana did not get home until late that afternoon and
the boys did not come in the house with him. I was mad that he was gone so long and
they had not gotten him home earlier, but Dana told me they could not get home any
sooner. He proceeded to tell me that the boys met up with two more of their friends,
two boys I did not like, and they did not go to the pool but instead went to the woods
down by the river. They had a blowup raft, which they put in the water, then held it
and had Dana get in it. The boys had told Dana they were going to get in with him,
but then they let it go with just him in the raft. As Dana’s story went on, I was getting
madder and madder. Dana proceeded to tell me the water started moving the raft
down the river very fast and the older boys started running next to the river trying to
keep up with the raft and hollering at Dana to hold on. Finally, one of the brothers
jumped into the river and grabbed onto the raft, trying to pull the raft back over to
the edge of the river. Dana told me it took the boy a long time to get the raft back to
shore, where the rest of the boys were still running to keep up with the raft. They
were hollering for the older boy to swim hard. When he was finally able to get the
raft close to the riverbank, the second brother jumped into the river to help get Dana
back on the bank and off the raft. They then had to walk all the way back to town,
and that was why Dana was late getting home.
I was more than mad now and headed straight for the two boys’ house that were
to have taken my son to the swimming pool. The boys got an ear full and their parents
told what they had done. Apparently, putting this little kid in the raft and letting it
loose was supposed to be a joke. They thought Dana would get scared when they let