By James Dunn
On March 23rd, 2016, Woodbridge High School English teachers Mr. O’Halloran and Mr. Switek made an appearance on the hit television show Maury to dispel rumors about their biological relationship to one another. Little did they know that an inside joke between Woodbridge’s English Department was about to lose its humor.
“Third grade was kind of a whirlwind. I was not ready to settle down,” confessed a sorrowful Mr. Switek as the paternity test revealed he was, in fact, Mr. O’Halloran’s biological father.
The show’s host, Maury Povich, posed the question the audience was dying to ask: How did the two teachers figure out they may be related?
As Mr. Switek explained, sixteen years after Mr. O’Halloran’s birth, the two inexplicably reconnected not as father and son, nor coworkers, but as teacher and student. “[Mr. O’Halloran] was a student in my Creative Writing class. The next year, his senior year, I had him in AP Literature. We thought it was crazy that we were both Polish-Irish guys with weak chins. Who would have thought we were related?”
Upon hearing the news, Mr. O’Halloran’s first reaction was mixed. “The first thing that hit me was that I have two dads. I thought that was pretty cool, until I realized one of them was Mr. Switek, the other one wasn’t my actual dad, and that neither is Neil Patrick Harris.”
With this new knowledge of his now revised family history, Mr. O’Halloran hopes that the rumors and jokes will cease to exist.
Mr. Switek, however, has other ideas. “Now, I can tell this son,” he said, pointing to Mr. O’Halloran, “to mow the lawn on Saturday while I hang out with my favorite son, Joseph.”
