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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