The Pen Ultimate

Searching for Oscar Part IV

As the subtitle suggests, this is the fourth installment of a story that starts here.

So sorry for the pun. This is the penultimate story in a series about my quest to find out what or who was behind Oscar Pens, a company that vanished. In my desperation and obsession, I researched all the families I could find who lived at the address listed for Oscar Pens, going so far as to invent a history with almost no evidence.

As I caught myself approaching the gray area where disinterested researcher morphs into psychotic stalker, I threw on the brakes and regrouped.

I hope to do more object histories, taking more care to acknowledge this project’s recursive absurdity. That is, every time I thought this whole project was ridiculous, I answered that the point was that it was ridiculous, but that just allowed me to go overboard. It seemed like each step toward questionable behavior justified the next.

Having decided not to risk frightening two nonagenarians without better evidence, I returned to another person I suspected of running Oscar Pens, a man named Stan Kessler.

As soon as I opened up the file notes on Kessler, I realized why I had bailed. Stan Stan Kessler died in 1993.

I recalled having been excited by the prospect that he was my guy. He was a businessman who had emigrated from Poland and eventually moved to Metairie, Louisiana.

Picking my way through the names in the obituary hadn’t helped. Stan’s kids had scattered to the four winds and, from my chastened stalker perspective, it seemed like more than a long shot to reach out to the kids.

“Hi! I know your dad died more than 30 years ago, but did he ever own a company that made or imported pens?”

It wasn’t just the long odds, but the certainty in my gut that I was on the wrong track. Not that this couldn’t have been the guy, only that, having learned my lesson, I wasn’t going to launch myself into people’s lives on a guess. Plus, what would the kids remember about one product their father may or may not have sold a generation or more ago?

Somehow, it would have felt worse to have gone through the trouble of hunting them down only to discover that they did remember the pens but nothing else about them.

There had been another Stanley Kessler in the area at the time. He was an evangelical of some sort (again, according to his obituary), which felt wrong. Still, I noted some of the kids’ names to see if they were any easier to find.

As I navigated this new rabbit hole I’d started digging, I happened across a Stan Kessler on one of those ZoomInfo-type sites that lists companies and officers. SMS Products was there with a different address. After all the stabbing in the dark I’d failed at, I took one final effective stab.

This was absolutely my guy, everything about him was right.

Careful What You Wish For

I wish I knew why I let this thing possess me. As I write this too long after having started it, I feel like the knowing and the “story of the knowing” were my true aim.

I’ll leave that sentence, but it isn’t right.

The point was to tell the story about Oscar Pens, but I’d already started a story about researching Oscar Pens. That was the difference (and why this has been such a clunky story to tell).

And then there’s this:

There is no sensible world where a human being gets such joy answering a question no one cared to ask as I do on these pointedly pointless quests.

But we can see the end from here, so let’s push on.

Having found my Stan, the prospect of losing him was a slow sick churn in my guts. There’s just one shot when you’re trying to talk to a stranger on the internet—I’ve written before about sending postcards to strangers—it’s easy to put people off, especially when it is patently silly.

I was terrified that I would come across as a crank or weirdo, and he would refuse to speak with me forever. That would mean there was an answer to my goofy, manufactured question and I would NEVER know it. So I took my final too-far-absurd step and stalked his children.

As it turned out, one was a lawyer. I felt like a lawyer could see that, while I might be a kook, I’m a harmless one.

I sent this to his company email:

Hi. I’m a journalist/busybody interested in speaking with your father and wanted to reach out to you first. I have a blog where I give myself odd reporting assignments and my latest one was tracking down SMS Products, Inc. I bought an “Oscar” pen set on the road and challenged myself to find out where they came from. After a bit of internet research I discovered that your father was likely the purveyor when he worked in Metairie. I wanted to ask him about his business and see if he even remembered importing and selling the pens (which I’ve come to understand are rare) … At the end of the day (if he’s game) I’d really just like to interview your father about his business as part of the story of hunting down some rare and obscure pens.

I got this reply almost immediately:

Ha. I still have some. Loved those pens. Let me ask if my dad is up to talking and if not, maybe I can although I don’t know the whole story.

I was absolutely stoked and gratified to know he would at least send my information along. I didn’t have long to wonder whether Stan was willing. Later that day the phone rang and the display said, “Maybe: Stan Kessler”

I was already on deadline and toyed with sending it to voicemail. I couldn’t. I needed to know whether he was just calling to say he wouldn’t talk. I planned to schedule a proper interview but didn’t dare miss my chance. I answered and Stan said, “Hello, I hear you want to know about Oscar Pens.”

Indeed I did.

Next up: An Improbable Pen in Improbable Times