THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 17, 1995 TAG: 9501140082
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: LIFE IN THE PASSING LANE
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
The small, hand-painted wooden sign on the front door of the Dickerson house reads: Home at Last.
And walking into their neat ranch house in Virginia Beach, you can easily understand that sentiment.
The fire blazing cozily behind glass doors in the cathedral-ceilinged den; the good-looking, healthy family clustered on the couch - mom Annette; dad Billy; Lee, 7; Ben, 12; and Will, the whiz kid from Princess Anne High School.
It's almost too good to be true.
You want to look under the couch and behind the closets for the monsters you know reside in so many families these days; for the dysfunction, the divorce, the adolescent angst.
But they're not here.
And maybe that's part of the secret to producing a kid like Will Dickerson. One who quotes Shakespeare the way other boys his age quote baseball stats. Who spends hours every day after school directing or acting in plays, instead of cruising the mall. Who has just sent off college applications to schools around the country, his priority not an active social life, but a good drama department.
A kid who is determined to make his mark on the stage.
Billy and Annette just shrug. They really don't know what they've done right with Will. Or with his brothers, who are outstanding in their own realm of sports.
They're just running their family, living their lives, the best way they know how.
But then they think a bit harder. And Annette spits out a word.
``Respect.''
It's the respect the kids have for them, which they have for their children and for each other, she says, that makes this family work.
For instance, it is a rule here that Dickersons don't go into each others' rooms without asking. That they respect each other's privacy.
It is a rule that each has his or her own chores to do, even Lee, the youngest. So that no matter how late Will gets home from rehearsal at night - sometimes at 1 in the morning - he still has to unload the dishwasher.
It is also a rule between Annette and Billy that their kids come first. So whenever one of their three sons wants to do something - be it play baseball, take karate or act in plays - they do it, regardless of the family's already hectic schedule.
``We never try to figure out beforehand how things are going to work into the schedule,'' Annette explains. ``We just sign them up and then figure it out.''
And attend every play production, every baseball game, every practice. When Will was younger, his parents would even go to cast parties and sit, bored, in a corner, watching 8-, or 9-, or 10-year-old Will hobnobbing with actors they'd only seen on the screen.
On those rare weekends or evenings when there's no game, practice or play, you'll find them in the den, huddled in front of the T.V.
``We're a couch potato family,'' Billy admits unashamedly. ``But hey, we're good at what we do.''
This is not a religious family. They rarely make it to church. But this is a family living the values it believes in.
Like the value of a strong marriage.
``Our kids know that we're committed to our marriage,'' says Annette, who has been wed to Billy for 18 years. ``Even when we fight, they know that's just part and parcel of it.''
Or the value of respecting nature and each other. Of stretching a dollar, searching for bargains.
``Respect and capitalism,'' Will jokes from his seat in the corner of the room. ``Those are the cornerstones of this family.'' ILLUSTRATION: BETH BERGMAN/Staff
In the Dickerson household, kids come first. Will, right, an
aspiring actor, sees his parents at every performance.
KEYWORDS: FAMILY VALUES by CNB