Big winners need no lottery jackpots
Novi Woods Elementary School Principal David Ascher, whose blog on "winning the lottery" went viral recently, sings and plays for his students. Credit: Karen Beatty
When we purchase lottery tickets, we’re renting the right to fantasize.
We pony up our $2 (OK, $20) and in exchange we imagine what we’d do if we won, with the fantasies changing as our lives and the world do.
Some youthful dreams of huge wealth, involving fire engines, hovercraft, international romance, space rockets and newspaper company purchases, were banned in my wedding vows (extended written version, pages 16-21, see illustrations). Others have evolved, as everyone’s fantasies should.
If you’d use $1 billion for the same things at 50 as at 15, you were extremely misguided at one or both ages.
But growing up isn’t the only thing that reshapes our lottery reveries. Pandemics do, too, and the fact that the jackpot numbers have gotten huge.
Last week, a $731 million Powerball ticket that won on Jan. 23 was sold at the Coney Market, a convenience store in the poverty-ravaged western Maryland town of Lonaconing. No one has come forward yet to claim it and who won may never be disclosed: Maryland is one of the few states where major winners can remain anonymous.
And that lottery win wasn’t even the biggest of the week. A single Mega Millions ticket sold at the Kroger supermarket in Novi, Michigan, is worth $1 billion.
The Novi Kroger sits five minutes from Novi Woods Elementary School and once the purchase location of the winning ticket was revealed, rumors spread that a group of teachers had won.
It is almost certainly not true, but it caught fire.
"I think it blew up because so many people wanted to believe it," Novi Woods Elementary School Principal David Ascher, 50, said in a phone interview Thursday. "I talked to a person from ‘Good Morning America’ who so strongly wanted it to be true. People want something great for teachers, and really all front-line workers, because in this pandemic we see how much they deserve it."
And Ascher, who started blogging eight years ago partly to encourage his students to work on their own writing, added fuel to the fire when he put up a post headlined, "I won the lottery!"
In the post, Ascher recounts the rumors spreading of a big win on his staff, the media calls, and his gratitude toward people saying they hoped it was true.
And then he explained what he meant by saying he "won the lottery," citing as jackpots:
- His 26 wonderful years as an educator
- His faith in God
- His friends and family, including two daughters in college and a passel of other beloved relatives
- And his wife’s agreement, 27 years ago, to a first date.
I say he won the lottery when he found the gratitude to see his blessings for what they are.
Searching my heart as I bought my tickets last week, I realized my big-dollar daydreams have changed. If $1 billion came my way today, I’d buy a hotel in a beautiful setting, fully staffed, with a bar and restaurant and pool and gym and spa.
Then I’d invite everyone I love, every friend and relative, to come and stay and play, to eat and relax and be together.
And the rooms that were not full of my people we’d still rent out, because I’m always looking for new friends, too.
What I miss, in this pandemic, is spending time with the people I love and finding new people to adore. Seeing that clearly is a blessing.
And when I get tired of them, and need time away? That’s what the hovercraft is for!
Lane Filler is a member of Newsday’s editorial board.
Lane Filler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
