For me, you nailed it.

My Dad grew up in NY, a Giants fan. He took me to Yankee Stadium and dresses me up in Yankee uniforms--they were all that was left, after all. We went to a Series Game in 1964, when I was 9. My heroes were Tresh and Richardson, and of course The Mick.

He moved to LA but remained a Giants fan. Years later I settled down in San Francisco and started my own family of Giants fans. I endured the cold, windy nights at Candlestick, when it sometimes seemed that I was on a first name basis with the select few in attendance.

So how sweet it was that I took my Dad the night that Barry hit his 71st and 72d homers, against the hated Dodgers. And that I was with my daughter when they won the pennant. And how agonizing when I took my Dad to Game 6 in Anaheim, when we were as close as we've ever been to a championship in SF.

My Dad died a year ago. I'm grateful to him for so many things that he gave me. Including a love for this game. I would have called him right after 756 to share the moment with him. Thanks to you, Joan, I have.

Britney Spears is utterly untalented. Always has been. That's OK, people are allowed to buy her records and watch her dance, if they like. They're even allowed to follow her private life as if it were something that mattered. That's called living in a "free" society.

And they're allowed to turn on her when she shows weakness. But let's not be hypocritical about it and pretend that she used to be an artist and somehow has gotten to be too old or too heavy, or whatever. She doesn't have any talent now and she never had any talent.

One problem with the question itself -- to tell or not to tell -- is the premise that there is any way of knowing what effect it will have on any particular kid if they know or don't know about what their parents did when they were younger. Some kids may want to emulate or take it as an expression of permission; some kids may want to do the opposite of whatever their parents did (becoming a straight-laced member of the Young Republicans can be a form of rebellion, after all); some kids may not care, in making their own choices, what their parents did 20-30 years ago (it is rather narcissistic, isn't it, to assume that this knowledge is going to make all that much difference to them.

One theme running through the responses, with which I agree, is that if you lie and they know or suspect it, you are going to lose a lot of your credibility when it comes time to deal with the questions and issues your kids will confront. ("How do you know what it's like when you're at a party and people start drinking, Dad? You told me that you were so straight you never did anything until you were 21 and married." I don't know you or your kids, but it would have been absolutely apparent to mine when they were -- 12, maybe? -- if I had told them I'd never experimented with drugs or alcohol when I was a teen that I was full of @#$%.

I personally think that the "I'm an adult and I don't have to tell you what I did" answer is a cop-out, it's hypocritical, and it is going to make it less likely that the kids will tell you what they are doing. And that is by far the most important thing, in my opinion. You are not going to be there when they are exposed to alcohol, drugs, sex, whatever -- and you and what you think are probably not going to be foremost in their minds at that moment, either. So you can't know or determine what choices they are going to make. But you can try to foster a relationship in which they will be honest with you about what they are doing and will safe to come to you if they are uncomfortable about what's going on.

I think you have to know your kids. That includes knowing what kind and how much information they can handle. They will ask when they are ready. I agree with those who say you can start by talking generally; if they want to know more, they'll ask. If you're not comfortable telling them more when they are at a particular age -- tell them that. Not "you're too young and I'm a grown-up," but rather, "you know I don't feel comfortable talking about all of this, I want to think about it a little more before getting into it more."

Last point -- I think one of the worst things parents of my age (now in my 50's, my kids are 18 and 21) can do is to say, "Well, we did all those things but it's different now, it's more dangerous, you shouldn't." Talk about hypocrisy . . . . We elected to tell the truth, which was what our drug use was, that we had friends and relatives who "experimented" way more than we did, that some people came out of all that ok, and that some didn't -- including my brother who died of a heroin overdose when he was 29.

Truth is really powerful stuff.

Anyone who has followed Sen Feinstein's career and CA politics knows that she has never been a liberal. She is and has always been a moderate Dem, and further to the right on some issues, such as support for the military and National Security. I don't think that her voting record has changed much regardless of who the President is and I don't think that for the most part her votes can be attributed to cowardice or political calculation. I'm afraid that she believes this stuff.

She is certainly not Barbara Boxer.