Journalist’s drive doesn’t ‘break’ for babies

TONY DODERO

I’d like to start off with a heartfelt thanks to all of you readers

who sent me congratulations on the birth of my third child, Nathan

Antonio Edward Dodero.

Little Nate, as we call him, is a healthy young boy and already

thinking of ways to torment his two older sisters I’m sure.

So after nearly three weeks off, a period of time in which it

seemed the entire state of California was engulfed in wildfires, it’s

good to be back here in the newsroom.

Still, it’s always tough to get back in the saddle after a

vacation, especially one that was spent not so much in a state of

rest and relaxation but with late night feedings, diaper changing and

hours and hours of swaying sleepily back forth in a rocking chair.

One thing I noticed while I was away is that I can be miles away

from this place but there’s always some sort of connection to

Newport- Mesa.

It happened the very day after my son was born.

My wife, Beth, and I were sitting in her room at St. Joseph’s

Hospital in Orange, where she received top-notch care I might add,

when a news flash appeared on the TV screen.

The TV then went to a helicopter shot of the Back Bay, reporting

that a suspect was barricaded in a home on Galaxy Drive in Newport

Beach. The home was ablaze and police were looking for the intruder,

the TV report said.

“I gotta make sure the paper knows about this,” I told my wife.

I dialed my cell phone (I know, you’re not supposed to use them in

a hospital) and called Managing Editor S.J. Cahn.

“We’re on it,” he told me.

“Oh, OK, glad to hear it,” I said.

It was good to know my staff was on top of things even in my

absence, but it was no fun being a tipster to something everyone was

already aware of.

Then the next day my wife called me on that same cell phone from

her hotel bed.

She was watching “Oprah” she said, (something I was troubled to

learn is a very, very common occurrence while I’m off at work), and

the show was about the most expensive and extravagant things in the

world.

“They just showed the most expensive martini in the world and it’s

at the Villa Nova,” said Beth, who also enjoys being a tipster now

and then.

The martini is $650 a drink and the reason it’s so expensive is

because of the cognac or something like that, she said.

So again I called the newsroom.

“We’re on it,” Cahn repeated.

Boy was it good to feel needed.

*

The day I returned was also the first day of work for our new

business, environment and politics reporter Alicia Robinson.

Robinson will be a great addition to the staff and is sorely

needed as the replacement to Paul Clinton, who covered that beat for

several years before he left to work at the Daily Breeze in Torrance.

Robinson hails from Ohio, same as our new education reporter

Marisa O’Neil, and is a graduate of Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

She was been a reporter for the Suburban News Publications, a

group of community weeklies in central Ohio, and the Delaware

Gazette, a six-day daily in Ohio’s fastest-growing county.

“I’m excited to learn more about the Newport-Mesa community and I

expect to find a wealth of interesting and newsworthy stories here,”

she said on her first week aboard.

Finally, I have this note to share from former Daily Pilot

Managing Editor Chuck Loos, who reports that former Daily Pilot

reporter and now fiction writer T. Jefferson Parker garnered the top

fiction honors at the recent Southern California Booksellers Assn.

awards.

Parker’s award came form his novel “Cold Pursuit,” written about a

San Diego homicide officer.

Some of you may know that he first broke onto the mystery writing

scene with his novel “Laguna Heat,” which was based in Orange County

and featured many fictional characters who bear strong resemblance to

real characters that I’ve met and interviewed in my years as a

reporter and writer.

Congratulations to Parker.