Dana White, King of MMA

On Sunday mornings, I liked to get up before Dana and his sister and I would put
cinnamon buns in the oven. The Pillsbury ones you can buy at the grocery store,
nothing homemade but they still smelled and tasted great, I’m sure better than if I
had made them from scratch. When Dana and Kelly woke up, the smell of the
cinnamon buns would be wafting through the whole house. They both loved those
sweet, sticky baked buns, and I always loved the idea of waking to the smell of
something baking in the oven and of having warm memories of Sunday morning at
home. I used to love Sunday mornings. We attended the local Catholic Church in Ware
and Dana became an altar boy. Dana was in fact one of the altar boys for his sister’s
first communion. I wish I had written down some of the stories he would tell me when
he came home from his catechism classes. Dana would reiterate the story they had
taught in class, like Jesus and the five loaves of bread and fishes, then he would give
me his take on the story. Of course, his interpretation was never anywhere close to
what the real meaning of the story was, but his take on it was funny to hear.
When I made the decision to move to Las Vegas, Dana told the priest at the parish
he would not be able to assist at mass anymore. The priest was quite upset and asked
if I could come in for a meeting with him. At our meeting, he told me he was upset
about Dana moving away, that Dana was very inquisitive about God and the teachings
of the Catholic Church and he felt that, with the right encouragement and direction,
Dana might be destined for the priesthood. I am sure, if that priest has passed on, he
is turning over in his grave to see the direction Dana took, and the person he has
become.
Knowing Dana now, it is hard to believe; but when Dana was younger, he did not
like to fight and he did not like other kids being picked on. It was the sixties and
seventies, and my friends and I were pacifists (make love, not war), and it seems
Dana was following our lead. In his school picture from kindergarten, he has cuts and
scabs on the bridge of his nose and on both of his lips. The one on his nose was from
another little boy cracking Dana across the face with a metal shovel when Dana tried
to stop this boy from beating up another boy at the playground next to our house. The
busted up lips happened when Dana was on a slide at school and another little boy
climbed up and got in front of the child who was waiting his turn to go down the