Life&Arts�

Section E • The Columbus Dispatch • Saturday, June 15, 2013

LOS ANGELES — After morethan 4,000 episodes of theiconic daytime game showLet’s Make a Deal, Monty Hallhas earned an Emmy Award atlast.

“TV’s big dealer” will receivea lifetime-achievement honorat the 40th annual DaytimeEmmy Awards, to be shownSunday on HLN.

His wife of 65 years, Marilyn,beat him to the podium almost30 years ago, winning anEmmy as a producer of Do YouRemember Love, a 1985 made-fot-TV movie.

“I’m going to place theEmmy on a shelf next to mywife’s Emmy, and maybe oneday we’ll have little Emmys,”Monty Hall said with a smile

during a recent interview at hishome in Beverly Hills, Calif.

He doesn’t show his age — acouple of months shy of his92nd birthday.

He still does the New YorkTimes crossword puzzle — “inink” — every day.

And he has his hand in thelatest incarnation of Let’s Makea Deal, which is seen weekdayson CBS with Wayne Brady asthe host.

As an owner of the seriesand a consultant, Hall hasmade several appearanceswith Brady on the series — in-cluding the recent 50th-anniversary show.

In fact, Hall said, he hashosted Let’s Make a Deal everydecade since it got its start onNBC in late 1963.

He praised what Brady isdoing with the series.

“He’s making it his show.He’s learning the star of theshow is the contestant and tomake them feel at home, makethem feel like they came toyour party.”

The concept for Let’s Make aDeal, which was created andproduced by Hall and StefanHatos, was inspired by The

Television

First hostof ‘Deal’to receivean EmmyBy Susan KingLOS ANGELES TIMES

See Hall Page E4

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Monty Hall, one-time host ofLet’s Make a Deal

A TIMELY TRIBUTEIn honor of Father’s Day on Sunday, ‘The Dispatch’ features

a special package of First Person essays. / Page E3

The mothers anddaughters crossedarms and heldhands, singing the

Girl Scout song about mak-ing new friends but keepingthe old.

In a few minutes, the girlswould have to leave — carry-ing leftover cupcakes andjuice boxes past the barbedwire and through the metaldetector.

Their moms would staybehind — in some cases, foryears to come.

A circle’s round; it has noend, they sang. That’s howlong I want to be your friend.

Mothers began buryingtheir daughters in hugs,mentioning the next timethat the bus will carry themfrom Columbus to the troop meetings at the Ohio

Reformatory for Women inMarysville.

As the oldest member ofTroop 48001 tried to avoidthe displays of affection, hermom sneaked a kiss on hercheek.

Diedra Gardner, 17, acteddisgusted.

“Oh, my God, I’m going tovomit,” she deadpanned,watching her mom start totear up. “Don’t start crying.Oh, my God, I can see itcoming.”

At first, Diedra didn’t want

BROOKE LAVALLEY DISPATCH PHOTOS

Diedra Gardner, above and below, during a visit with her mom, Tara, at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville

Family bonding,the hard way

By Amy SaundersTHE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

See Bonding Page E6

Bonds Beyond Barsis a Girl Scout pro-gram for the daugh-ters of incarceratedmothers, with 30chapters nationwide.

E6 THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH LIFE&ARTS SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 2013 �

to join Bonds Beyond Bars, aGirl Scout program for thedaughters of incarceratedmothers, with 30 chaptersnationwide — not after theyears that her mom had abuseddrugs and alcohol, ruiningbirthdays and Christmases forDiedra and her four youngerbrothers.

By January 2012, when Tarabegan a 32-month sentence foridentity theft and forgery,Diedra had grown to hate her.

She tried to block thoughts ofher mom, focusing on gettinggood grades at Whitehall-Yearling High School and be-coming the first in her family togo to college.

Tara, too, pushed herself toimprove, reclaiming her healthand advancing her education.In November, she gained per-mission to join the Girl Scouttroop at the prison, where75 percent of the inmates havechildren.

Since then, through sevenmonths of meetings aboutcrafts and cookie sales, theGardners have been repairingtheir relationship: Tara realizingthe importance of being amother and Diedra, though stillangry, realizing that she missedhaving one.

She snickered about theMother’s Day card she deco-rated, depicting her stick-figuremom behind bars, tears flowingfrom her eyes. Tara wasoffended until she read thesentiments inside:

I can’t wait for you to get outof here so I can be with you allthe time.

. . .If not for Girl Scouts, Tara

wouldn’t have had visitorsduring the past six months.

Struggling with health issues,her estranged husband hasn’ttaken their four sons, ages 9 to14, to see her since Christmas;other relatives live out of state.

Unable to afford the prisonprices for phone calls andemail, Tara, 35, contains herrelationship with Diedra almostentirely to the troop meetings,conducted two Saturdays amonth during the school yearand once monthly in thesummer.

For the 21 other troop mem-bers, one as young as 5, timewith Mom is similarly limited.

The Girl Scouts of Ohio’sHeartland Council — which in1994 started the second BondsBeyond Bars program in thenation (the first was in Mary-land) — draws from 30counties. Most meetings in-clude a dozen or fewer atten-dees, with girls traveling morethan two hours to the prison.

Program director Diana Leeprovides lunch, plans activitiesand invites guest speakers.With the rest of the time open,the younger girls end up witharms around their moms, snug-gled into laps.

The relationship is morecomplicated for Diedra andTara, who hold hands oneminute and bicker the next.

Their argument topics —Diedra’s boyfriend, her plans togo tanning before her prom —aren’t so different from those ofother teen girls and moms.

But the setting is never out ofmind as their conversationsmove quickly from the seriousto the mundane: Tara’s hopesfor a release date earlier thanJuly 2014, Diedra’s recent mealat BD’s Mongolian Grill.

“Is that where you’re going totake me when I get out?” Taraasked.

Diedra fired back with truth-laced sarcasm.

“Why would I treat you forgetting out of prison? It’s yourfault you went in there, and it’snot my fault you have to eatprison food every day,” shesnapped, before pausing. “Ihave to go to Easton.”

“You hurt my feelings; I wantyou to apologize,” Tara saidquietly. “What do you need atEaston?”

Toward the end of the meet-ing, the volunteers who hadgiven a presentation aboutconflict resolution passed outwork sheets.

Diedra began answering thequestionnaire: “Who do youlook up to?”

When similar questions areraised, Diedra hates that somegirls name their moms. In-carcerated parents, she thinks,are role models of what not tobe.

No one, she wrote, becauseI’m the only person I can de-

pend on 100% of the time.

. . .The Vicodin was prescribed

for a shoulder strain after Tara,a waitress at the time, slippedand fell at work.

She began to like how thepills eased her pain from adifficult childhood, the pres-sures of raising five children.

Beginning when Diedra was12, Tara’s addiction spiraled outof control and into other sub-stances: alcohol, heroin, what-ever pills she could get.

On one of Diedra’s birthdays,her mom was too drunk toenjoy the family beach trip. Onthe next, she skipped birthdaycake to stay in the bedroom,getting high with a friend.

The day Diedra turned 16,Tara awoke in the hospital aftera health scare, her chronicobstructive pulmonary diseaseaggravated by drug abuse.

“Do you know what todayis?” Diedra asked, and her momdidn’t.

Eventually, Diedra gave upon the relationship. She doesn’tunderstand why her mom evertried drugs when her grandmais also an addict, comparingthe decision to that of know-ingly eating a bowl of cancer.

In her clouded mind, Tarajustified her actions: At leastshe was using drugs at home,not out on the streets. Whenshe stole more than $2,000from residents of a retirementhome, where she worked as an aide, most of it was forChristmas presents for her

BondingFROM PAGE E1

BROOKE LAVALLEY DISPATCH PHOTOS

Mothers and daughters say goodbye at the end of a Bonds Beyond Bars meeting at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.

Continued on Page E7

Scouts exit below barbed wire after visiting their mothers.

BONDS BEYOND BARS

� THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH LIFE&ARTS SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 2013 E7

Peanuts CHARLES M. SCHULZ

B.C. MASTROIANNI & HART

Hagar the Horrible CHRIS BROWNE

Hi & Lois BRIAN WALKER, GREG WALKER & CHANCE BROWNE

Marvin TOM ARMSTRONG

Pearls Before Swine STEPHAN PASTIS

Zits JERRY SCOTT & JIM BORGMAN

kids, she said.The rest was for

drugs.Reflecting, Tara said

she was so selfish thatshe didn’t realize theharm to her childrenuntil after she was sen-tenced to prison for notpaying restitution to thevictims — a probationviolation.

A month into herprison term, she re-ceived a letter fromDiedra that broke herheart.

Dear Mom, it beganon loose-leaf paper. Icried today in school.Because I miss you.

Diedra wrote abouthaving to smile and actstrong while waking upeach morning angryand sad. Tara hadn’tconsidered that herdaughter, so adept atkeeping up her guard,would miss her mom inthe middle of the night.

I feel so alone because,even though I’m sur-rounded by so manypeople who love me,Diedra wrote, the oneperson I want to fix thisall, can’t.

. . .It sounds strange, she

said, but Tara looks upto a teenager: herdaughter.

“To me, she’s just soperfect,” she said. “She’severything I wish I was.”

Whereas Diedra isfunny and outgoing,Tara can be shy andlacking in self-confi-dence.

While balancingchoir, cheerleading andpart-time work atDonatos, Diedra madethe National HonorSociety. Tara droppedout in the ninth gradeto look after heryounger sister; theirmom kept overdosing.

Now, Diedra is theone caring for heryounger brothers, oneof whom has specialneeds, while their fatherworks nights as a secu-rity guard.

She chose OhioDominican Universityin part for the scholar-ships, worried aboutbecoming “$90 millionin debt.” Although she’dlike studying music orworking with animals,she thinks a career inmedicine would providewhat she wants most:stability.

“When I move out, Iget a fresh start, and Iget to make every singledecision on my own,”she said. “I want to endmy bad life and start abetter one.”

For the first time inyears, Tara is aiming todo the same. She re-cently wrote an essay

reflecting on her time inprison, titling it “ABlessing in Disguise.”

From prison, she hasobtained a high-schoolequivalence certificateand enrolled in a com-munity college to earn asocial-work degree.After her release, shehopes to enter a half-way house and start acareer in chemical-dependency counseling.

She lost 50 poundsand began studying theBible. A volunteer invarious prison pro-grams, she wasapproved this month tostart working outsidethe prison gates for thecity of Marysville.

Maybe she deservedthe life she gave herself,Tara used to think, buther children deserve abetter mom. Their oldmom would show uphigh to Diedra’s con-certs and refuse to takethe boys to the park.

“Now, I’d do anythingto go to that choir con-cert. . . . I would love achance to do homeworkwith my kids,” she said.“I can’t wait to go homeand do all of thosethings.”

Diedra keeps remind-ing her mom that shewon’t be there, half-joking that she’ll nevercome home fromcollege or share hercampus address.

Still, Tara makes com-ments about campingin the backyard andlying in bed talking. Atone Girl Scout meeting,as she looked at thelittle girls cuddling withtheir moms, Tara askedDiedra why she neversits in her lap anymore.

Her mom wantsanother chance at herdaughter’s childhood,Diedra thinks, but it’stoo late.

. . .They discussed

Diedra’s year-end choirtrip over sandwichesthat Tara sliced with aplastic spoon becauseknives aren’t allowed inprison.

Diedra excitedly toldher mom that she wasgoing to Chicago afterall. The school librarian,knowing she couldn’tafford the trip, offeredto donate $400.

“We get to go to amall with seven floors,”she said, describing theitinerary. “Seven floors!”

Tara started to cry,wiping her eyes with a

Cheetos-stained nap-kin.

In December, she hadasked a judge for earlyrelease, saying shewanted to see herdaughter graduate.Describing her achieve-ments in prison, shedidn’t expect to bedenied for the thirdtime.

“You don’t under-stand,” Tara told herdaughter, who beggedher to stop crying.“There’s things thatyou’ll look back on, andI won’t be in thatmemory.”

Only a few Girl Scoutmeetings remain untilSept. 30, when herdaughter becomes tooold for the program.

During the past 18months, Tara hasmissed Diedra’s collegevisits and choir con-certs. She missedDiedra accepting heraward for cheerleadingMVP, Diedra wavingfrom the homecoming-court float in theparade.

Before the Whitehall-Yearling graduationtoday, Tara sent herdaughter a letter and allshe could give as agraduation gift: a stringbracelet she made inthe prison’s arts-and-crafts area.

So a piece of me willbe with you, she wrote.

She’ll miss seeingDiedra in her cap andgown, singing thenational anthem.

As the milestonespass, Tara worries thather daughter won’tforgive her absence. Shegets nervous beforeevery Girl Scout meet-ing, imagining the feel-ing of disappointment ifDiedra doesn’t show up.

But she always does,even when their lastmeeting fell the morn-ing after the prom.Diedra looks forward tothe meetings, even ifshe often doesn’t let itshow.

Before Diedra wenthome once, Tara wipedher own tears and toldher she loves her.Diedra allowed a briefhug before her armsdropped to her sides.

Not until she left theconference room didTara hear the goodbye,with Diedra’s voicecalling from the hall-way: “I love you, Mom!”

asaunders@dispatch.com

@amyksaunders

Continued from Page E6 “Now, I’d do anything to go to thatchoir concert. . . . I would love achance to do homework with mykids. I can’t wait to go home and doall of those things.” — Tara Gardner,incarcerated mom