Tammi: Tammi Chase, here, thirteen-year-old child prodigy, well sort of. Mom's taking a shower now, so I've taken over the newspaper.

Kit: Kit Chase here, managing editor of a weekly newspaper, and mother of a very precocious thirteen-year-old daughter. My age is unmentionable. I am not taking a shower. I just needed my daughter's help to write my column, while I'm busy with other parts of the paper.

"Mother and Daughter" by Shoshana Gugenheim

Tammi: You all may think that taking over a small section of the paper like my mom's weekly column is some innocent little favor, but you don't know the half of it. I plan to take over the paper, then Cleveland, then Canada, and then the world! (Pick chair up and hold over head, look sheepish, then put chair on floor) Yeah, I know it sounds a little "Pinky and the Brain"-ish to take over the world, but I shall call my new nation Cle va nada.

Kit: She's a chip off the old block, all right. To start with, we put the paper together on three computers that essentially take up the entire dining room. We haven't had a regular family meal in months.

Tammi: That's because the table is full of computers, press releases, and stacks of last week's paper that nobody bought. And now they're all sticky with syrup from breakfast. (Why? Thought the dining room wasn't used for eating.)

Kit: I didn't start out wanting to be an editor. Actually I hoped to be a cowboy or an astronaut, but that's when I was five. By the time I was ten I wanted to be a pirate or a belly dancer. When I went away to college, I found out they didn't have a school for belly dancing so I settled on an English degree. I've always liked to write.

Tammi: You want to know what I don't want to be when I grow up — an editor. They have two heads and eight arms. Mom's influence on me is overbearing. I get these awful headaches, and I've got a third arm growing. (Takes arm out of sleeve and waves empty sleeve around, turning in circles) The kids at school think it's hilarious.

Kit: Inside the newsroom — in this case, our home — is an education, one that the man on the street will never see, unless he's hired. The final product is what concerns readers. I think it's important for journalists to educate the public about newspapers and how to use them. They are communication tools. Tools that influences the public, swaying opinion, informing, journaling events that become history. Why, it almost can get up and tap dance.

Tammi: Believe me; you don't want to see my mom tap dance. And we sure don't want the man on the street inside the house. He'd see what a dysfunctional family we are, ruled by computers.

Kit: I am blessed with the most understanding family in the world. When I came home one day and announced that I'd quit my job at the daily, and that the dining room was to become the new office of the weekly Journal, no one said anything negative.

Tammi: That's because we were shocked into silence. Personally, all of my opinions are good ones, and I have one about my mom's paper. No, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it; I just think it would be very much improved if she did a few things . . . differently. Like move it to Cle va nada. That's why I'm going to take over Cleveland and Canada, so she can clear the dining room table of all that mess.

Kit: When I started in the newspaper business seven years ago, I was (mumble, cough) years old and beginning a career for the first time. Before that I was a stay-at-home-mom raising four kids. When I walked into the offices of the local daily, many things were thrown at me all at once. I had to learn to be professional, learn to be a journalist, learn how to us computers and their programs, learn who was who in town, and learn how to spell.

Tammi: She had to know all that by 10 a.m. on the first day of work. (Pause) Seven years ago she couldn't even spell journalist, and now she is one. She loves it too! Heels flying, cameras snapping and pens spreading ink over any available surface. Mom thought that because she could put a verb and a noun together that it was the basis for a career in journalism. Boy, did she get a surprise. She found out pretty quickly, just like Tom Hanks said in that movie, "There ain't no crying" in journalism.

Kit: (Snuffling) I'm NOT crying, I tell you.

Tammi: (Holds palm toward mom) Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell it to the hand!

Kit: Most new journalists who walk into the newsroom are shocked into reality. They find that the degree in their hand means nothing to their editor and that their real education has just started.

Tammi: So now Mom is an editor and my real education has started at the dining room table. Some days I wake up wishing she opted for being that belly dancer.

Kit: Real news reporting is the presentation of facts, never fiction. The paper's primary instrument for reporting the news is the straight news story. It is an account of something that actually happened or statements made, related as honestly, thoroughly, accurately, and impartially as possible.

Tammi: And then there's the correction box when things go terribly wrong like they did last week when my mom made all those mistakes. That correction box was hopping mad.

Kit: Yeah, yeah, yeah, one little mistake, just one, and now the public wants my firstborn child. (Turn toward Tammi) Sayyyy.

Tammi: Mom, don't look at me that way. Remember it's just a job! I'm the fourth born, and besides, I've gotta get goin' " Cle va nada awaits my genius!!

Kit: Well, at least she finished the article. (Pause) There she goes, chasing after a dream; or is it me? It's so hard to tell sometimes if it's me, my daughter, or myself. (Stop, freeze for three seconds, bow head.)

Bio:
Kit Chase lives in Gainesville, a small rural town in north central Texas. She is married to Tom Chase and together they have four children. Her career in journalism didn't begin until after she reached forty and walked into the town's only newspaper office applying for a job as a reporter. Five years later she created a position as managing editor at a newly formed weekly paper, The North Texas Journal. Kit's interest in writing has always been part of her life, fostered by her mother when she was younger. She and her family participate in the local community theater Butterfield Stage, and have appeared in numerous productions. She has written a murder mystery comedy for a dinner theater, which was produced by Butterfield in 1998. A favorite hobby of hers is the card game euchre.

Kit can be reached at: kittom@swbell.net

Bio:
To find out more about the artist Shoshana Gugenheim, her website is www.artfully.org and Shoshana can be reached at: shoshana@artfully.org