From handball to happy family
Luis Pena
Diane Beach, 50, owns the Side Street Cafe in Costa Mesa.
Where did you grow up?
The early years were in Buffalo, N.Y. I grew up back East in the
snow. I was born in Cleveland. My dad was still in school, so we
lived back East until he got out of school, which took a long time --
he’s got a PhD in physics. My dad got a job out here at JPL, and we
moved to Southern California, I think, in sixth grade.
I’m the oldest of nine children, so I grew up kind of in a busy
household, shall we say. Not a very rich household. I moved around a
lot in the early years. Lower-middle class, I would say. People out
here in Southern California, a lot of the natives, have no idea what
it’s like to live back in the snow, to live where there are no fences
between people’s houses, where everybody knows everybody and talks to
everybody. We all walked to school. I lived through tornados back
there. We had ice storms, rain storms. We got snowed in during the
winter time. It was a long time ago. It was a different world back
then. We went caroling at Christmas. It’s a little different out here
in Southern California.
What kind of childhood did you have?
I had eight brothers and sisters. I spent a lot of time taking
care of other kids. I was very athletic as a kid. I started playing
tennis when we moved out to Southern California. I started playing
tournaments when I was 12, so from 12 to 18, I was a tennis freak. I
started teaching tennis when I was 15 years old, at a club. I had
good parents. It was a happy childhood even though there was never
enough money to go around. There was never enough attention, and I
kind of escaped that by getting wrapped up in sports, which was
unusual for a girl in the ‘60s, early ‘70s. It was a good childhood.
I had five little brothers -- can you imagine the torture I endured
bringing a guy over to my house on a date? The teasing. Oh it was
just -- ugh! -- but it was a happy childhood. I still see all of my
family, and we’re all still close. I had a good, normal, traditional
mom who stayed home, and dad worked -- a “Happy Days”-type childhood.
How did you end up in Newport-Mesa?
I ended up here when my dad got a job in the aerospace industry at
JPL. So, he relocated our family across country, and the climate, the
weather, has kept me here. And now that I have my own family and they
have kids, we are pretty much locked into this area. There’s good
weather, there’s plenty of work. If you can make it in Southern
California, you can make it anywhere.
What are your greatest accomplishments in life?
I have five kids, and they’re all good kids. That’s probably my
biggest accomplishment. I own a business, which is a restaurant,
which is a great gig. As an athlete, I did some pretty good things.
When I was 30, I won a national singles handball championship. I was
the best female handball player in the world at one point. I played
racquetball. I won five national racquetball championships outdoors.
I was No. 1 in singles at UCI in tennis. At one point I worked in
construction and I got my contractor’s license. It’s a kind of a
pride that you keep to yourself. If you do something good and you
know about it, you don’t need to broadcast it.
If you could redo one moment or incident in your life, what would
it be?
To have stayed in college. That’s a no-brainer. I quit school to
get married and have babies. Then, I was divorced at 22 with two kids
to feed. See, it’s different now. What you guys don’t understand is
that if I wanted to have kids, I would just have kids now. Ideally,
you want to get married and raise a family as a unit. But back then,
you didn’t do that -- you got married. I came from a very traditional
background. My kids are doing what I didn’t do, which is to complete
school. I could have gotten a lot of better jobs. When I was younger
as an athlete, racquetball player, I got offered teaching jobs across
the country, but I didn’t have an education. I couldn’t go teach at
the University of Florida in Gainesville. I think college teaches you
the discipline to stick things out. You get exposed to an awful lot.
I certainly don’t think that college is the answer to everybody’s
problems. As a young person, it’s vital to success later in life.
What profession other than yours would you like to have tried?
Photography. I still might do it. It’s interesting to me. I think
it’s cool to try to capture what people are about. Saving people’s
essences or trying to find something unusual. I just think that
photography is so interesting. I just like pictures. I started, I
guess, with pictures of my kids and it kind of evolved into just
moments. Capturing the feeling that people have for each other. In
fact, that will probably be the next direction I go in my life.
What are some differences between a typical day in your life now
versus a day in your life 20 years ago?
Twenty years ago, I was in shape. I was traveling all over the
country playing tournaments. I worked in a handball club. I taught
aerobics in that club, and I played handball tournaments every single
weekend -- indoor, outdoors -- all over the United States. I was
sponsored by a glove company, so I got a lot of my expenses paid, and
I had two kids 20 years ago. I dragged them all over the place. I had
one goal, and that was to be the best handball player in the world. I
took one year out of my life, and that’s what I did. I trained and
played every tournament that I could get, and I won the national
championship. And now I get up, take my kids to school, I come to
work and I run a business. I’m married, I have employees, I am a lot
more responsible these days. Less athletic and more responsible.
What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned in your life?
Probably the greatest lesson I’ve learned is that anybody can do
anything if they’re willing to pay the price. Anybody can be
successful if you’re willing to work your [tail] off. Anybody can be
a good parent if they hang in there, care about their kids, and do
the best they can for them. Most of us are lazy. We don’t achieve and
we don’t accomplish what we want because we don’t want to endure the
day-to-day grind of achieving your goal. Things are handed to us.
You’ve got to go out there and get it yourself.
What do you treasure most?
My kids respect my family. There’s been a lot of times in my life
when I was a single parent and I really appreciate being happily
married right now and having kids that are healthy and contributing
members of society and hard-working and successful themselves. You
know, they care about other people. They’re good kids, and I think
that tells me I did a good job as a mom.
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