The Asimakoupoulos' fireplace mantel is decorated with movie memorabilia.
Provided photo/Greg Asimakoupoulos
Last Sunday, Hollywood honored its own with the 95th Academy Awards. As is our family custom, we decorated the fireplace mantel with movie memorabilia.
From the time our kids were little, we would use Oscar night as an opportunity to dress up, eat a nice dinner and then watch the televised ceremonies as a family while scoring our individual ballots. Now that our three daughters are grown, Wendy and I have simplified our tradition, but we still decorate the mantle and watch the ceremonies, with ballots in hand.
Recently, I got to wondering how the little gold statue awarded to Academy winners got the nickname Oscar. Turns out, there are three plausible explanations.
One version suggests that the name originated with Margaret Florence Herrick, former executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who insisted that the silhouette of the trophy resembled her uncle Oscar. If that’s the case, her relatively unknown family member has left a lasting shadow on an industry of which he was not a part.
I had an uncle Oscar. Maybe you did, too. But my grandmother’s youngest brother isn’t the only Oscar who has paraded across the stage of my life. There was Oscar Nelson with whom I went to high school. Nellie was a gifted athlete! There was Oskar Schindler, whose famous life-saving list inspired a movie that impacted me deeply. I will never forget laying a stone at his grave in Jerusalem to symbolize my gratitude for his life.
There was Oscar de la Renta, whose overpriced dress shoes I purchased at a thrift store in Napa, California, the same day that I wore them for my best friend’s wedding. And there’s little Oscar Anderson. He’s the 5-year-old grandson of good friends from Illinois I have yet to meet in person. (Thank God for Facebook!) And, of course, there’s Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street, who intersected our kids’ lives long before they knew about the Academy Awards or Facebook.
Except for the grouchy one who lives in a trash can, the Oscars in my life are real people with real stories of struggles and challenges, as well as being loved and being given opportunities to love. For them, learning their lines is a daily occurrence. Except for those who have taken their final curtain call, the script of these Oscars’ lives is still in the process of being written. It is not the product of a screenwriter.
The same is true with regard to your script and mine. Each day we act and react in accordance to the circumstances we randomly encounter for which we cannot prepare. Each day we are presented with a chance to offer the performance of our lives. But the script is of our own making.
Although we do not have a predetermined script, we are not left on our own.
As a person of faith, I affirm the presence of Someone who is involved in “the dailies” of the movie that is my life. I believe there is Someone in the director’s chair who provides me with cues for what I should do and what I should say or when I should remain silent on the soundstage of daily living. That’s how I understand my Creator. Ours is a God who coaches from the sidelines. And the eventual reward we are promised for acting on the cues we’ve been given is “out of this world.” Based on what I read in Scripture, it’s even better than the Oscars Hollywood hands out.
And speaking of the Oscars, have you ever contemplated the irony of that little gold man? Those who win one are rewarded for pretending to be someone other than who they really are. That’s the nature of acting. As much as I’d enjoy having an authentic Oscar on my fireplace mantel, I’ll likely never get one. But I’m okay with that.
As far as I’m concerned, being a productive performer in the drama of daily life is much more meaningful and accessible than the pretense of a scripted and costumed role. Each day you and I are invited to celebrate being ourselves and making a difference in the world in the process.
Wenatchee native Greg Asimakoupoulos lives on Mercer Island, where he is a columnist for the Mercer Island Reporter.
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