If People Only Knew: My Kids

My daughter, the basketball player, is starring as Rizzo this week in a youth production of "Grease" at the Vacaville Performing Arts Center. She'll walk the stage where such entertainment luminaries as Tony Orlando and the New Riders of the Purple Sage once performed.

She's actually a performer who, as mentioned previously, woke one day and decided to play basketball. She made the K.I. Jones Elementary squad today, attended her first practice...then split to head for a 4-hour rehearsal for "Grease." There are 4-hour rehearsals every night this week.

The stuff they put the kid performers through is rigorous. When cheerleaders started putting in that much effort, their parents started insisting cheerleading be considered a sport...and I laughed out loud. So, given that she had a 2-hour hoop practice and a 4-hour rehearsal, my daughter's at home with six of those Salonpas heat patches on various parts of her body.

We get a kick out of using Salonpas for sore muscles because a lot of people pronounce Sillanpaa "Salonpas." I don't know how much good they'll do for my 10-year-old daughter.

I'm thinking of how much hell I caught on the North Coast for what a guy who ripped me not long ago called "ranting" about my kids. If my 10-year-old daughter was doing all this stuff up there...her name would be in the newspaper for basketball results at some point and, eventually, for her appearance in a play. And, her effort and whatever talent she's developed on her would be diminished or, worse, completely dismissed by people who'd say she's only getting attention because her dad works for the newspaper.

It's funny, now, because I work for a newspaper in Napa and she plays ball in Fairfield ... and performs for a theater company located in Vacaville.

A local newspaper sent a writer over to interview some kids about the upcoming "Grease" performances. The woman who runs the theater company picks the youngsters she feels best represent the company so...she picked three eighth graders and my 10-year-old daughter. It'll be the third time she'll have been pictured or quoted in a newspaper story in the last few years.

It's such a relief for me to know she'll never have some parent, who'd probably be jealous or just bitter, lace her up for getting more attention than some other children. It's an equal relief knowing ... nobody would even think to dismiss her achievements because of her old man.

I got to thinking about the media attention when her mom called to tell me that the theater director picked the kids who she felt would give the best interviews. It's not as though little kids are automatically able to answer in complete sentences or explain the plot.

When my older kids were in school, the shit hit the fan whenever they got mentioned in the newspaper because I worked at the newspaper. Nobody ever stepped back and noticed that KIEM and KVIQ TV guys used to interview them all the time, after games and at practices. Like their little sister, my older sons were just good at giving interviews -- at answering in complete sentences that made for sound bites before we really knew what sound bites were. But...when they got attention in the newspaper...it was me "ranting" about my kids. Mark Dempske, who's on TV sports anchor in Sacramento now, interviewed my kids for TV quite often -- and he and I barely got along.

Ah, old times...best put in the rear view mirror. But, not before I point out that there are some things about the North Coast that I don't miss.