The prompt for Week 47 of 2024’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is “Random Number.”
We’re lucky we lived nowhere near a casino and that my dad never got into poker because he loved to gamble. His game of choice was the lottery. Whether it was scratch tickets, Megabucks, or the weekly Pick-4, he played them all. Dad always believed he’d win big someday, and he invested a lot in that dream. It wasn’t unusual for him to buy $20 worth of scratch tickets the 2-3 times each week he stopped by the convenience store. This was in the 1980s when $20 had much more buying power.
The Pick-4 was drawn twice each week. I vividly remember sitting with him in front of the TV waiting for the numbers to be drawn. He played the same number, 1069, which Mom thinks was his union number or department number at the mill, and he bought both a straight and boxed ticket for each drawing. The prize was larger for a straight ticket, but the numbers had to come up in order, whereas they could come up in any combination for a boxed ticket. Every so often, he’d win a few hundred dollars on a boxed ticket, and when he did, he was always generous. When I was in 4th grade, Pound Puppies had just come out, and I wanted one of those stuffed animals so badly! Dad won $200 on the Pick-4 and brought my brother and me to Child World, this awesome toy store with a castle façade, so we could each choose one.
Dad eventually won a sizeable amount -- $10,000 – and was obviously thrilled. The thing is, he would have made far more money if he’d invested the few hundred dollars he spent each month on lottery tickets instead. I think it was the thrill of the chase that hooked him. Dad purchased a wish… a possibility…with each dollar he spent on his tickets, and that made him happy.
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