My Weird Little Oscar Story

I've commented on the weird little coincidences in my life before. When I hung out with other bloggers Friday night, we discovered that we all had some little connection with one another. This kind of thing happens all the time in my life.

When I was a senior in high school, in 1979, at Lyons Township, in Lagrange, Illinois, I had a teacher named Scott Siegel. He was a pretty cool guy. He was only a few years older than us, had a white man 'fro and wore funny ties-- they'd have Donald Duck and other cartoon characters on them. We always wondered why. The class was Consumer Education, and the format was very casual. There was a lot of discussion. One day, we all did stand up comedy. Siegel was very open about his personal life. He was, like me at the time, a devoted runner. He talked one day about a conflict he was having in his marriage-- that he wanted kids and his wife didn't.

Flash forward 20 years. I had just married wife #2, who was a first grade teacher in Evanston, Illinois. One day she was talking about the fact that she had one of a set of twins that were in her school in her class that year, and that their father owned the company that made the Oscar statutes. She mentioned that his name was Scott Siegel. I asked how old he was, and she said mid-forties, and wondered why. I dragged out my high school yearbook and showed her a picture. Sure enough, it was him.

A few weeks later, I went to a recital at her school. Scott was there and I went over and chatted with him. His father, it turns out, owned the company that made the Oscars-- and other statues-- and Scott inherited control of it when his father passed away.

A couple of months after that, there was a social function for the school in a tavern on Southport Avenue in Chicago and I had a chance to have a drink and chat with him. I reminded him about what he'd said about his wife not wanting kids. It turned out that the conflict was fatal to the marriage. He divorced, married wife #2 and had kids with her. I also asked about the cartoon neckties. He said that his class fell within the Business Department at my high school, and that the department chairman forced him to wear a tie. To tweak him, he got his wife to make ties out of material with cartoon characters. Not surprisingly, Scott did not get favorable reviews and was "RIF'ed" (Reduction in Force-- teacher euphemism for "laid off") a couple of years later. I guess I wouldn't give a shit about my job either if I knew I was going to inherit the company that makes the Oscar.

Although he was really only a few years older than me, it was still strange having a drink with and talking as a peer with an old high school teacher. It was especially strange that our kids were only a couple of years apart in age.

There was one little perk for my now-ex-wife to having Scott as a parent of her student: his company also made the Golden Apple awards, given for teaching excellence. Scott's son gave her a Golden Apple statue. Though it wasn't official, she richly deserved it.