A Stunned Father's Experience at CNN Heroes Tribute
I’m one of the least likely folks you can imagine to find themselves at a red carpet event. I barely watch TV and I don’t follow pop culture at all. Lately, I’ve gotten used to media outlets calling looking for my inventor daughter, but when the show producer called, I must admit I barely knew what the CNN Heroes tribute show was.
But I have to say, from start to finish, I was really impressed. After some phone interviews, they flew out to Chicago and filmed my daughter in a half dozen locations, thoroughly interviewing everyone from her grandfather to her teachers, teammates and even a manufacturer. I felt like they did a great job capturing the essence of Lily, our family and why and how she invented the cup.
A month later, CNN called to say they were flying us out to the show. I still didn't really know what that meant, but luckily, we had enough instructions to know that we better dress up and brush our teeth:)
If you’ve never been a to a red carpet event, it’s largely what you’d expect. Beautiful setting, meticulous attention to detail, quick witted young handlers chasing around gorgeous celebrities. Red carpets and champagne everywhere.
The biggest surprise were the people. We were introduced to the other Young Wonders, as they are called, and much to my amazement, the parents were no more insiders or tiger parent than we were. From Minneapolis and Miami, I met stunned parents who, just like me, were chasing kids with the gift of being too naive to know they shouldn’t be solving the world's problems at their young age.
At dinner, my daughter and I sat between Don Lemon and Sheryl Crow, who could not have been more gracious. Like Anderson Cooper, who we met on the way to dinner, they were amazingly engaged and interested in what my daughter was doing.
The heroes themselves seemed models of openness and sincerity, and despite all the recent attention, they seem like the kind of folks genuinely more interested in helping people and promoting their causes than getting attention for themselves.
Lily’s grandfather spent much of his career as an industrial filmmaker interviewing “ordinary people,” and I can recall asking him once why he doesn’t use professional actors since they are so much easier to work with, don’t get camera shy, don’t stammer or lose their train of thought, show up on time, etc. I’ll never forget his answer, “because people can tell the difference, people are very instinctive about what’s genuine and what’s not.”
If our example is any indication, the folks at Heroes went to a lot of trouble to find and work with a lot of "ordinary folks," far outside of their circles, and both Lily and I found the results incredibly inspiring. I hope we can live up to being included in this group.
If you don't know my daughter's story, you can read it here and watch the show, it airs December 7th at 8pm EST.
