The COVID 19 pandemic of 2020 has given all of us a time to reflect on what is important to each of us, whether it be family, faith, work or play. Early on in my self-isolation, I churned our four books - the Civil War collection of themed newspaper articles. However, my mind also found time to wander in directions away from the history genre on which I focus. I've enjoyed playing with fictional short stories, and periodically I'll share some of those moments with you.
The Accident
A Short Story by Bob Young, copyright 2021
A clearly exhausted couple headed home following an extended road trip. This had been their escape from the boredom of self-isolation during a pandemic. Days of exploration followed by nights in the cozy confines of their powder blue RV were just the antidote that Bill and Edna needed. Their golden years, after all, were not supposed to be spent trapped within the walls of a suburban house.
The road signs that zipped by indicated home is getting closer. And, the closer they got, the darker the sky became from the combination of a setting sun and a gathering summer storm. High above the landscape, angry grey clouds were growing. The arriving night air was impregnated with a fine mist, which quickly turned to intense rain, obscuring the view of countryside and the highway ahead.
During their lifetime of RV adventures, the couple drove through many rainstorms. In fact, Bill had attached a Storm Chaser decal to the rear window. This storm seemed no different from the others. Bill tightened his grip on the steering wheel to counter a buffeting wind, while Edna poked on her cellphone to pull up a weather radar. The screen was awash in green, orange and red, showing rain all around them. They heard the rain, too, as falling drops beat against that powder blue metal chassis.
As the RV negotiated a series of winding curves on a particularly steep hill, a pair of blinding headlights completely fill the windshield, blocking out any visual sense of what lay ahead. The light was abruptly accompanied by the sound of crunching steel and the smell of burning gasoline and flaming tires. An empty silence settled in, save for the continuous pelting of the raindrops.
People in an on-coming car could not avoid the tragic scene laid out on the wet asphalt before them – a car and an RV barely recognizable. Their call for emergency assistance brought police and ambulances, bathed in haunting flashes of blue and red and announced by a frightening chorus of sirens. Bill and Edna are quickly on their way to a trauma center. The other driver, who obviously had been drinking from the tell-tale empty beer cans in his car, was left for the coroner to retrieve.
++++
The couple arrived at their darkened home in the dead of night and quickly backed the powder blue RV onto the driveway. Their trip had been exhausting, but they summoned the energy to make a quick dash to the house through the torrents of rain, flicking on the lights as they entered. Yes, Bill and Edna were worn out from the drive but not tired enough to go to bed right away.
“Turn on the television,” Bill called out, as he pulled a hanger from the coat closet for his wet jacket. “It’s not too late to catch the late news.”
“Why don’t you do that, dear,” Edna replied from the kitchen. “I’ll make us a hot cup of coffee and heat up some biscuits in the microwave.”
In the adjoining sunroom, Bill picked up the remote that gives life to the television. He pushed several buttons but got nothing but static on the big screen. Clearly frustrated, he pushed the blue button, the one that looks like a microphone and in a firm voice said “evening news!”
“What was that dear?” Edna called out.
“Nothing. Just trying to get this television to work.” As Bill responded, the screen filled with the familiar face of the news announcer giving a report on a horrible wreck. In the midst of a blinding rainstorm, a drunk driver, he reads, crashed head on into a recreational vehicle. The video images that accompanied the narration looked strangely familiar to Bill.
He was struck by the fact that the RV was powder blue - just like his. But what caught Bill’s eye was the Storm Chaser decal on the front window. It looked just like the one on his RV. In fact, Bill realized that the RV in the accident he was seeing on the television was a dead ringer for the one he and Edna just spent days in traveling to parts unknown.
Bill was struck enough by the image that he walked to the front window to take another look outside at his vehicle. “Just a co-incidence,” he thought while parting the green curtains. But, he is not ready for the scene that greeted him. The driveway where he had just parked his RV was empty. No sign of his vehicle anywhere.
“Damn,” he shouted out. “Our RV has been stolen.” Bill headed straight for the living room where he picked up the house phone to call the police.
Edna by now has settled into the sunroom with a steaming cup of coffee and a biscuit to catch the evening news. No sooner had she taken her seat than the story of the fatal highway crash was updated. This new report tells that the woman who was injured just died.
After filling in the police with details of his vehicle theft, a very upset Bill returned to the sunroom. The news was still on, but his wife was not there. He supposed for a moment that she had gone to bed but sees Edna’s snack on the side table by the beige sofa. Bill reached for the remote to turn off the set, when suddenly a picture from a driver’s license filled the screen.
The news announcer described the picture as that of the woman who died from her injuries in the wreck. Bill’s face become pale. He dropped the remote and steadied himself on the red wingback chair. The face filling the television screen was Edna’s!
He called out her name. “Edna! Edna where are you?” He frantically rushed to the bedroom, surveyed the adjoining bathroom, then ran throughout the house calling for his life’s partner. The sense of panic in Bill’s voice was overwhelming, but he got no response. “Edna, where are you? Edna, oh Edna!”
The television news program continued in the background. Bill could not care less. He had moved on to the guest rooms upstairs looing for his wife.
More details of the accident were being shared. This time the announcer reported the death of the other person in the RV – the man who was driving it. As the information was being reported, the television screen filled with the picture off the victim’s driver’s license.
The house fell silent. Absent were the sounds of feet dashing from room to room and the desperate shouts for the missing Edna. The house seemed as empty as it had been when the couple arrived home not so long ago. The only sign of life was the television, and by now the announcer had moved on to other developments.
++++
The older son of the couple soon arrived at the 2-story forest green house he had grown up in. Wes was still in shock from the phone calls he received from the police department. First his mother, then his father, both victims of a horrible accident that also destroyed their beloved powder blue RV. His first instinct was to go to his parent’s house, because it would quickly become a gathering place for mournful family and friends.
Wes’ sadness was evident as he turned the brushed bronze knob to open the front door.
“Quite unusual,” he thought. The house was lit up as if someone were home. But, he knew that was not possible with his parents away. Walking through the foyer and into the kitchen he was struck by the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee and the sound of the television coming from the sunroom filling the background.
Wes touched the silver percolator. It was plugged in and hot to the touch, signaling a pot of freshly brewed coffee. Nearby on the counter was a plate of biscuits, placed into a neat circle with one missing. Clearly, Wes thought, “Someone is here.”
He instinctively called out for Bill and Edna, his parents, the people who lived in the house. Then he caught himself in the silence that followed. They of course could not answer, would not answer; they were dead. “Have other family members arrived already?” Wes wondered. But no one responded. Walking into the sunroom, Wes reached for the remote to turn the television off.
Wes sat on the edge of the red wingback chair to ponder the present circumstances but was interrupted by a sudden knock on the front door. “Must be family,” he thought. Wes moved to the foyer and opened the door. He was met by a rather tall man in a dark suit, who introduced himself as an investigator from the police department.
The officer related to Wes that about an hour earlier the police dispatcher received phone call from Bill. Wes’ father told the dispatcher that his beloved powder blue RV with the Storm Chaser decal on the front window had been stolen from his driveway. The investigator said Bill told the dispatcher that he had a picture of the vehicle the police could have and would leave it out for an officer to pick up. The investigator apologized for taking so long to come by, but he had been busy helping the duty officers work a tragic wreck on a hillside above town.
“There, that must be it,” the investigator said as he reached out toward a table near the door. There sat a picture of Bill’s powder blue RV, the one with the Storm Chaser sticker in the front window. On a corner of the picture was a sticky note, where Bill had written his name and phone number for the police.
The road signs that zipped by indicated home is getting closer. And, the closer they got, the darker the sky became from the combination of a setting sun and a gathering summer storm. High above the landscape, angry grey clouds were growing. The arriving night air was impregnated with a fine mist, which quickly turned to intense rain, obscuring the view of countryside and the highway ahead.
During their lifetime of RV adventures, the couple drove through many rainstorms. In fact, Bill had attached a Storm Chaser decal to the rear window. This storm seemed no different from the others. Bill tightened his grip on the steering wheel to counter a buffeting wind, while Edna poked on her cellphone to pull up a weather radar. The screen was awash in green, orange and red, showing rain all around them. They heard the rain, too, as falling drops beat against that powder blue metal chassis.
As the RV negotiated a series of winding curves on a particularly steep hill, a pair of blinding headlights completely fill the windshield, blocking out any visual sense of what lay ahead. The light was abruptly accompanied by the sound of crunching steel and the smell of burning gasoline and flaming tires. An empty silence settled in, save for the continuous pelting of the raindrops.
People in an on-coming car could not avoid the tragic scene laid out on the wet asphalt before them – a car and an RV barely recognizable. Their call for emergency assistance brought police and ambulances, bathed in haunting flashes of blue and red and announced by a frightening chorus of sirens. Bill and Edna are quickly on their way to a trauma center. The other driver, who obviously had been drinking from the tell-tale empty beer cans in his car, was left for the coroner to retrieve.
++++
The couple arrived at their darkened home in the dead of night and quickly backed the powder blue RV onto the driveway. Their trip had been exhausting, but they summoned the energy to make a quick dash to the house through the torrents of rain, flicking on the lights as they entered. Yes, Bill and Edna were worn out from the drive but not tired enough to go to bed right away.
“Turn on the television,” Bill called out, as he pulled a hanger from the coat closet for his wet jacket. “It’s not too late to catch the late news.”
“Why don’t you do that, dear,” Edna replied from the kitchen. “I’ll make us a hot cup of coffee and heat up some biscuits in the microwave.”
In the adjoining sunroom, Bill picked up the remote that gives life to the television. He pushed several buttons but got nothing but static on the big screen. Clearly frustrated, he pushed the blue button, the one that looks like a microphone and in a firm voice said “evening news!”
“What was that dear?” Edna called out.
“Nothing. Just trying to get this television to work.” As Bill responded, the screen filled with the familiar face of the news announcer giving a report on a horrible wreck. In the midst of a blinding rainstorm, a drunk driver, he reads, crashed head on into a recreational vehicle. The video images that accompanied the narration looked strangely familiar to Bill.
He was struck by the fact that the RV was powder blue - just like his. But what caught Bill’s eye was the Storm Chaser decal on the front window. It looked just like the one on his RV. In fact, Bill realized that the RV in the accident he was seeing on the television was a dead ringer for the one he and Edna just spent days in traveling to parts unknown.
Bill was struck enough by the image that he walked to the front window to take another look outside at his vehicle. “Just a co-incidence,” he thought while parting the green curtains. But, he is not ready for the scene that greeted him. The driveway where he had just parked his RV was empty. No sign of his vehicle anywhere.
“Damn,” he shouted out. “Our RV has been stolen.” Bill headed straight for the living room where he picked up the house phone to call the police.
Edna by now has settled into the sunroom with a steaming cup of coffee and a biscuit to catch the evening news. No sooner had she taken her seat than the story of the fatal highway crash was updated. This new report tells that the woman who was injured just died.
After filling in the police with details of his vehicle theft, a very upset Bill returned to the sunroom. The news was still on, but his wife was not there. He supposed for a moment that she had gone to bed but sees Edna’s snack on the side table by the beige sofa. Bill reached for the remote to turn off the set, when suddenly a picture from a driver’s license filled the screen.
The news announcer described the picture as that of the woman who died from her injuries in the wreck. Bill’s face become pale. He dropped the remote and steadied himself on the red wingback chair. The face filling the television screen was Edna’s!
He called out her name. “Edna! Edna where are you?” He frantically rushed to the bedroom, surveyed the adjoining bathroom, then ran throughout the house calling for his life’s partner. The sense of panic in Bill’s voice was overwhelming, but he got no response. “Edna, where are you? Edna, oh Edna!”
The television news program continued in the background. Bill could not care less. He had moved on to the guest rooms upstairs looing for his wife.
More details of the accident were being shared. This time the announcer reported the death of the other person in the RV – the man who was driving it. As the information was being reported, the television screen filled with the picture off the victim’s driver’s license.
The house fell silent. Absent were the sounds of feet dashing from room to room and the desperate shouts for the missing Edna. The house seemed as empty as it had been when the couple arrived home not so long ago. The only sign of life was the television, and by now the announcer had moved on to other developments.
++++
The older son of the couple soon arrived at the 2-story forest green house he had grown up in. Wes was still in shock from the phone calls he received from the police department. First his mother, then his father, both victims of a horrible accident that also destroyed their beloved powder blue RV. His first instinct was to go to his parent’s house, because it would quickly become a gathering place for mournful family and friends.
Wes’ sadness was evident as he turned the brushed bronze knob to open the front door.
“Quite unusual,” he thought. The house was lit up as if someone were home. But, he knew that was not possible with his parents away. Walking through the foyer and into the kitchen he was struck by the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee and the sound of the television coming from the sunroom filling the background.
Wes touched the silver percolator. It was plugged in and hot to the touch, signaling a pot of freshly brewed coffee. Nearby on the counter was a plate of biscuits, placed into a neat circle with one missing. Clearly, Wes thought, “Someone is here.”
He instinctively called out for Bill and Edna, his parents, the people who lived in the house. Then he caught himself in the silence that followed. They of course could not answer, would not answer; they were dead. “Have other family members arrived already?” Wes wondered. But no one responded. Walking into the sunroom, Wes reached for the remote to turn the television off.
Wes sat on the edge of the red wingback chair to ponder the present circumstances but was interrupted by a sudden knock on the front door. “Must be family,” he thought. Wes moved to the foyer and opened the door. He was met by a rather tall man in a dark suit, who introduced himself as an investigator from the police department.
The officer related to Wes that about an hour earlier the police dispatcher received phone call from Bill. Wes’ father told the dispatcher that his beloved powder blue RV with the Storm Chaser decal on the front window had been stolen from his driveway. The investigator said Bill told the dispatcher that he had a picture of the vehicle the police could have and would leave it out for an officer to pick up. The investigator apologized for taking so long to come by, but he had been busy helping the duty officers work a tragic wreck on a hillside above town.
“There, that must be it,” the investigator said as he reached out toward a table near the door. There sat a picture of Bill’s powder blue RV, the one with the Storm Chaser sticker in the front window. On a corner of the picture was a sticky note, where Bill had written his name and phone number for the police.
The Lottery Ticket
A short story by Bob Young, copyright 2020
Jake is a self-centered thirty-something who loves to play the lottery. A dollar or two in, millions out; that’s his outlook. But he doesn’t need the big payout. The boyish-looking Internet company owner has already earned millions more than he and Gwen, his wife, and the kids would ever be able to spend. Yet the allure of risk and reward keeps Jake engaged in the game.
The same numbers rattle in his head each time he fills out a player’s form—09386 signifying his birthday. He feeds dollar after dollar into the Powerplay, Megabucks, and Graball games, and his power number is always 4—the number of members of his family.
Gwen has no time for the foolishness of the lottery and says more people lose money than win. Through her volunteer work at their church’s homeless shelter, she encounters many people who have met their downfall by gambling away their paychecks and subsistence funds.
One day after long hours in the office, Jake was finally headed home. Into the dark of night he drove his classic fire engine red 1965 Mustang convertible with the top down to enjoy the cool fall air. He made sure to turn up his radio so he could clearly hear the Graball numbers as they were read out. The jackpot had risen steadily in recent weeks, reaching the seven-figure range—$1,000,000!
At the same time, Gwen was attending a meeting of their church’s finance committee—a very important meeting because money was running out and the congregation was facing the prospect of closing its homeless shelter. Despite Jake’s reluctance, Gwen had put a lot of their own money into keeping the shelter afloat. However, just this afternoon Jake had laid down the law, telling Gwen, “No more. I’m tired of subsidizing these handouts.”
With his lottery ticket clenched in his left hand and his right hand firmly grasping the steering wheel, Jake turned an ear to the radio. “8-6-3-0-9,” the announcer proclaimed over the sound of the wind rushing into the car. Then the voice added, “The Graball power number is 4.” It took a few moments to sink in. Jake squinted at his lottery ticket while the winning numbers rattled around in his head. Mentally rearranging the numbers required only a few seconds. “I’m a winner!” Jake screamed over the cacophony of passing traffic. “I just won the lottery!”
Gathering his wits, he grabbed the steering wheel with his left hand while still clutching the lottery ticket and with his right hand fumbled for his cell phone somewhere on the passenger seat. Mindful of the whizzing traffic around him, Jake hit the speed dial button to call his home number. I’ve got to share this news with Gwen, he thought to himself. Foolish? Huh! She won’t believe this. The phone went straight to voicemail. Then he remembered—Gwen was at that church meeting.
As Jake reached out to lay the phone down, a car suddenly cut in front of him, the headlights momentarily blinding him. Instinctively, he jerked the steering wheel in the opposite direction, but as he did so, his grip on the lottery ticket was loosened and the paper went flying out of his hand into the night air.
Panic set in. Jake grabbed the wheel with both hands, quickly maneuvered onto the shoulder and parked. When he released his death grip on the steering wheel, all tension abruptly left his body, and he slumped down into his seat like a deflated balloon. Then the realization quickly set in. One million dollars gone in just an instant—out somewhere into the night air. “And I didn’t sign the ticket!” he yelled.
Regaining his composure, Jake retrieved a small flashlight from the glovebox and retraced his path along the shoulder of the busy road. Each wave of the wand of light revealed scraps of paper of all sorts—trash for sure, but no lottery ticket. After an exhaustive search, he had no choice but to give up and resume his trip home, all the while wondering how he could have allowed himself to lose that ticket—and forget to sign it so no one else could claim it.
Gwen was rather indifferent when Jake finally reached her with the news. “Reverend Campbell told us at committee tonight that our church will be forced to close our homeless shelter if we don’t come up with some money and fast,” she said. “We help so many families, many of them with children. I don’t know where they will go or what they will do without our shelter.”
The seriousness of her concern was not lost on Jake, but he wasn’t budging. “Then let it close,” he replied. “Not a dime more,” he added.
“Well, if I had a million dollars,” Gwen declared, “I’d give every penny to the church!”
***
The morning sky was beautiful, filled with lingering orange rays from a bright sunrise. Billy and Joanne were up early on this morning; it was the day for them to do their volunteer work picking up trash along the highway near their home. They wanted to get an early start so as not to miss their scheduled tennis match. Their active retirement included time for fulfilling volunteer work. Adopting a stretch of highway for regular cleanup seemed like a worthwhile contribution.
In their bright lime-colored vests, it was impossible to miss these two silver-haired senior citizens filling their orange trash bags with all manner of debris picked up from along the roadside…drink cans, paper cups, even a diaper or two. “Darn,” Billy called out. “I spilled some of the liquid from this beer can on my shirt.” He tried to brush it off with his gloves, but it had soaked in. “Don’t worry, dear. I’ll take your shirt to the cleaners for you after we finish,” Joanne said. The stench from day-old beer was so irritating, Billy was ready to call it quits on the spot.But he didn’t.
Something caught his eye among the scraps of paper on the ground. A lottery ticket. Might just be worth something, Billy thought. He and Joanne had found some coins and a few bills on earlier cleanups, but nothing of much value. Nevertheless, he tucked the ticket in his shirt pocket as he joined Joanne to head back home.
***
At the laundry, Billy’s red shirt was tagged and tossed into a bin with many other soiled shirts that would all soon be as clean as new. A pair of workers on the washing crew pulled the shirts from the bin and noticed a scrap of paper. “It’s a lottery ticket!” one of them exclaimed. The other responded, “We need to put this back with the shirt it fell out of.” But which shirt? “I think it’s the blue one,” the one worker offered. To which the other replied, “I’m not so sure, but let’s put it with the blue one anyway. They can sort it out later at the counter.”
***
Tim made his weekly stop at the laundry to pick up his shirts, all nicely pressed and starched for another day of wear at the utility office where he worked. While leaving the shop, he noticed something different about this collection of shirts. A small plastic bag was stapled to the neck of the hanger of his blue shirt, and in the bag was a piece of paper. Tim looked closely at it, twisting the bag for a better view, and asked quizzically, “A lottery ticket?” Why is a lottery ticket stapled to my shirts? he wondered as he stepped out onto the sidewalk. Not a gambler by nature, Tim took no interest in the lottery. So while passing by a trash can, he ripped off the small plastic bag and dropped it into the receptacle.
***
The city provided collections of its public trash cans that had been strategically placed throughout the downtown district. At each location a big green truck appeared on a regular basis; with great precision, the truck driver employed a mechanical arm to scoop up the cans, dump their contents into the rear of the cavernous vehicle, and thrust the cans back down onto the sidewalk, landing with a loud “thud.” The driver never got out of the vehicle to check the work, so sometimes small pieces of trash, such as a plastic bag with a lottery ticket inside, would slip from a tilting can and fall into a nearby gutter undetected.
***
Tommy knew all about the need to clean up after the trash collectors had done their work. The streets had been home for Tommy for the past several months. Bad relations with family, coupled with escapes to alcohol and drugs, had pushed him to one of the lowest places in his life: he had lost everything that meant anything to him. Now Tommy spent his time looking for a shelter for the night and a square meal at a soup kitchen each day.
Sun glistening off a plastic bag is what drew Tommy’s attention to the gutter. “Can’t leave the streets untidy,” he mumbled to himself as he picked up the bag and opened it. “A lottery ticket!” he exclaimed. “Well, I’ll be.” Tommy knew he would need more—a lot more—than a winning lottery ticket to change his life. He tossed the plastic bag into a nearby trash can but tucked the lottery ticket into the side pocket of the frayed windbreaker he was wearing. He looked rather odd to passersby, this disheveled man in his 50’s, with his scraggly beard and deep-seated dark eyes, wearing a green jacket with the prestigious Augusta National Golf Club logo on it.
***
The down-and-out men and women who found shelter at the Gothic-style red brick church in one of the city’s more affluent areas must have felt that they came close to Heaven on earth whenever they walked inside. Welcoming arms provided a hot meal and bed for the night. Reverend Campbell had started the shelter more than a decade ago when hard times hit the community. The minister liked to use the words of Jesus when he talked about the needs of “the least of these” in his community. The result was that “hospitality” had become a cornerstone of the church, and the congregation would have it no other way.
Each night, in a special wing of the parish hall, cots were set up with clean brown blankets and fluffy white pillows for whoever needed a place to stay. No questions were asked, and nothing was expected of the visitors, other than that they attend an evening prayer service to offer their personal thanks for God’s gift of a warm place to lay their heads.
Tommy was a fixture at the shelter. He knew the pastor well and joyously participated in the evening service. Every night Reverend Campbell passed the collection plate, not expecting any money. Instead he usually received written prayer requests or expressions of gratitude. Over the years many odd items had been placed in the collection plate, and the minister accepted all of them with the good intentions with which they had been given.
On this night when the plate was passed to him, Tommy found himself with nothing to offer. Then it hit him—the lottery ticket! A smile brightened his face when he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the now-crumpled piece of paper and dropped it into the plate.
***
Reverend Campbell was a patient man who knew that if God wanted his church to continue to offer a homeless ministry, the resources would be provided. However, he was running out of hope. He acknowledged that the doors would close the following weekend without a large cash infusion. Both he and the congregation had done all they could, already pouring out their hearts and resources in abundance.
Seated in his study on the second floor of the parish hall, Reverend Campbell was going through the items in the offering plate when a small crumpled piece of paper caught his eye. Opening it, he realized it was a Graball lottery ticket—and an unsigned one at that. So no one had a prior claim on it. Now, why would anyone put a lottery ticket in our collection plate? he wondered. Curiosity quickly set in, and the preacher fired up his desktop computer. I’m going to check the numbers to see if we won anything, but surely not. The screen came to life, and he pulled up the lottery website.
Reverend Campbell quickly saw that there had been a winning number drawn in the Graball game. Indeed, someone had even won $1 million that had yet to be claimed! His inquiring brown eyes looked down on the number boxes on the ticket, and with his right index finger he touched each one as he compared them to the winning numbers on the screen. Then he said the numbers aloud: “8-6-3-0-9 and 4.”
The matching numbers were unmistakable. Emotion quickly overwhelmed this humble man of God. “A miracle!” he shouted. “A million dollar miracle to save the church’s homeless shelter.” Tears streamed down the clergyman’s face. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you,” he sobbed as he buried his reddening face in his hands.
***
Jake and Gwen were with their two children in their regular pew on Sunday morning. Their mood was somber. Gwen was well aware of the church’s dire financial challenge with the homeless shelter. Jake was still stewing over his careless loss of his lottery ticket.
Reverend Campbell began the service in a most unusual way with a special announcement: a bonanza of money had come to the church to keep the homeless shelter open. Gwen was beside herself when Reverend Campbell broke the news. How had this come to be? she wondered. The pastor didn’t waste any time explaining. “God dropped a winning lottery ticket into our collection plate,” he stated. “The winning numbers were 8-6-3-0-9 and 4. Those numbers,” he continued, “will forever hold a special place in this house of worship…God’s house.”
Jake’s ears perked up. He could not believe what he was hearing. That was his lottery ticket. The numbers the minister had just called out were his numbers!
But it didn’t take long for the reality of the moment to hit Jake. He quickly understood that his special numbers now belonged to God. What he had just witnessed opened his eyes to his own foolishness—and selfishness—in that relentless quest for riches he did not need. Foolishness, he thought. Jake then came to understand that his wife had it right all along.
In making the joyous announcement of the windfall, Pastor Campbell could not pass up the opportunity to talk about stewardship. And, as he did, Jake took Gwen’s hand and squeezed it; she turned and smiled at her husband. Then Jake looked up silently with closed eyes. His lips appropriately mouthed, “Amen.”
The same numbers rattle in his head each time he fills out a player’s form—09386 signifying his birthday. He feeds dollar after dollar into the Powerplay, Megabucks, and Graball games, and his power number is always 4—the number of members of his family.
Gwen has no time for the foolishness of the lottery and says more people lose money than win. Through her volunteer work at their church’s homeless shelter, she encounters many people who have met their downfall by gambling away their paychecks and subsistence funds.
One day after long hours in the office, Jake was finally headed home. Into the dark of night he drove his classic fire engine red 1965 Mustang convertible with the top down to enjoy the cool fall air. He made sure to turn up his radio so he could clearly hear the Graball numbers as they were read out. The jackpot had risen steadily in recent weeks, reaching the seven-figure range—$1,000,000!
At the same time, Gwen was attending a meeting of their church’s finance committee—a very important meeting because money was running out and the congregation was facing the prospect of closing its homeless shelter. Despite Jake’s reluctance, Gwen had put a lot of their own money into keeping the shelter afloat. However, just this afternoon Jake had laid down the law, telling Gwen, “No more. I’m tired of subsidizing these handouts.”
With his lottery ticket clenched in his left hand and his right hand firmly grasping the steering wheel, Jake turned an ear to the radio. “8-6-3-0-9,” the announcer proclaimed over the sound of the wind rushing into the car. Then the voice added, “The Graball power number is 4.” It took a few moments to sink in. Jake squinted at his lottery ticket while the winning numbers rattled around in his head. Mentally rearranging the numbers required only a few seconds. “I’m a winner!” Jake screamed over the cacophony of passing traffic. “I just won the lottery!”
Gathering his wits, he grabbed the steering wheel with his left hand while still clutching the lottery ticket and with his right hand fumbled for his cell phone somewhere on the passenger seat. Mindful of the whizzing traffic around him, Jake hit the speed dial button to call his home number. I’ve got to share this news with Gwen, he thought to himself. Foolish? Huh! She won’t believe this. The phone went straight to voicemail. Then he remembered—Gwen was at that church meeting.
As Jake reached out to lay the phone down, a car suddenly cut in front of him, the headlights momentarily blinding him. Instinctively, he jerked the steering wheel in the opposite direction, but as he did so, his grip on the lottery ticket was loosened and the paper went flying out of his hand into the night air.
Panic set in. Jake grabbed the wheel with both hands, quickly maneuvered onto the shoulder and parked. When he released his death grip on the steering wheel, all tension abruptly left his body, and he slumped down into his seat like a deflated balloon. Then the realization quickly set in. One million dollars gone in just an instant—out somewhere into the night air. “And I didn’t sign the ticket!” he yelled.
Regaining his composure, Jake retrieved a small flashlight from the glovebox and retraced his path along the shoulder of the busy road. Each wave of the wand of light revealed scraps of paper of all sorts—trash for sure, but no lottery ticket. After an exhaustive search, he had no choice but to give up and resume his trip home, all the while wondering how he could have allowed himself to lose that ticket—and forget to sign it so no one else could claim it.
Gwen was rather indifferent when Jake finally reached her with the news. “Reverend Campbell told us at committee tonight that our church will be forced to close our homeless shelter if we don’t come up with some money and fast,” she said. “We help so many families, many of them with children. I don’t know where they will go or what they will do without our shelter.”
The seriousness of her concern was not lost on Jake, but he wasn’t budging. “Then let it close,” he replied. “Not a dime more,” he added.
“Well, if I had a million dollars,” Gwen declared, “I’d give every penny to the church!”
***
The morning sky was beautiful, filled with lingering orange rays from a bright sunrise. Billy and Joanne were up early on this morning; it was the day for them to do their volunteer work picking up trash along the highway near their home. They wanted to get an early start so as not to miss their scheduled tennis match. Their active retirement included time for fulfilling volunteer work. Adopting a stretch of highway for regular cleanup seemed like a worthwhile contribution.
In their bright lime-colored vests, it was impossible to miss these two silver-haired senior citizens filling their orange trash bags with all manner of debris picked up from along the roadside…drink cans, paper cups, even a diaper or two. “Darn,” Billy called out. “I spilled some of the liquid from this beer can on my shirt.” He tried to brush it off with his gloves, but it had soaked in. “Don’t worry, dear. I’ll take your shirt to the cleaners for you after we finish,” Joanne said. The stench from day-old beer was so irritating, Billy was ready to call it quits on the spot.But he didn’t.
Something caught his eye among the scraps of paper on the ground. A lottery ticket. Might just be worth something, Billy thought. He and Joanne had found some coins and a few bills on earlier cleanups, but nothing of much value. Nevertheless, he tucked the ticket in his shirt pocket as he joined Joanne to head back home.
***
At the laundry, Billy’s red shirt was tagged and tossed into a bin with many other soiled shirts that would all soon be as clean as new. A pair of workers on the washing crew pulled the shirts from the bin and noticed a scrap of paper. “It’s a lottery ticket!” one of them exclaimed. The other responded, “We need to put this back with the shirt it fell out of.” But which shirt? “I think it’s the blue one,” the one worker offered. To which the other replied, “I’m not so sure, but let’s put it with the blue one anyway. They can sort it out later at the counter.”
***
Tim made his weekly stop at the laundry to pick up his shirts, all nicely pressed and starched for another day of wear at the utility office where he worked. While leaving the shop, he noticed something different about this collection of shirts. A small plastic bag was stapled to the neck of the hanger of his blue shirt, and in the bag was a piece of paper. Tim looked closely at it, twisting the bag for a better view, and asked quizzically, “A lottery ticket?” Why is a lottery ticket stapled to my shirts? he wondered as he stepped out onto the sidewalk. Not a gambler by nature, Tim took no interest in the lottery. So while passing by a trash can, he ripped off the small plastic bag and dropped it into the receptacle.
***
The city provided collections of its public trash cans that had been strategically placed throughout the downtown district. At each location a big green truck appeared on a regular basis; with great precision, the truck driver employed a mechanical arm to scoop up the cans, dump their contents into the rear of the cavernous vehicle, and thrust the cans back down onto the sidewalk, landing with a loud “thud.” The driver never got out of the vehicle to check the work, so sometimes small pieces of trash, such as a plastic bag with a lottery ticket inside, would slip from a tilting can and fall into a nearby gutter undetected.
***
Tommy knew all about the need to clean up after the trash collectors had done their work. The streets had been home for Tommy for the past several months. Bad relations with family, coupled with escapes to alcohol and drugs, had pushed him to one of the lowest places in his life: he had lost everything that meant anything to him. Now Tommy spent his time looking for a shelter for the night and a square meal at a soup kitchen each day.
Sun glistening off a plastic bag is what drew Tommy’s attention to the gutter. “Can’t leave the streets untidy,” he mumbled to himself as he picked up the bag and opened it. “A lottery ticket!” he exclaimed. “Well, I’ll be.” Tommy knew he would need more—a lot more—than a winning lottery ticket to change his life. He tossed the plastic bag into a nearby trash can but tucked the lottery ticket into the side pocket of the frayed windbreaker he was wearing. He looked rather odd to passersby, this disheveled man in his 50’s, with his scraggly beard and deep-seated dark eyes, wearing a green jacket with the prestigious Augusta National Golf Club logo on it.
***
The down-and-out men and women who found shelter at the Gothic-style red brick church in one of the city’s more affluent areas must have felt that they came close to Heaven on earth whenever they walked inside. Welcoming arms provided a hot meal and bed for the night. Reverend Campbell had started the shelter more than a decade ago when hard times hit the community. The minister liked to use the words of Jesus when he talked about the needs of “the least of these” in his community. The result was that “hospitality” had become a cornerstone of the church, and the congregation would have it no other way.
Each night, in a special wing of the parish hall, cots were set up with clean brown blankets and fluffy white pillows for whoever needed a place to stay. No questions were asked, and nothing was expected of the visitors, other than that they attend an evening prayer service to offer their personal thanks for God’s gift of a warm place to lay their heads.
Tommy was a fixture at the shelter. He knew the pastor well and joyously participated in the evening service. Every night Reverend Campbell passed the collection plate, not expecting any money. Instead he usually received written prayer requests or expressions of gratitude. Over the years many odd items had been placed in the collection plate, and the minister accepted all of them with the good intentions with which they had been given.
On this night when the plate was passed to him, Tommy found himself with nothing to offer. Then it hit him—the lottery ticket! A smile brightened his face when he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the now-crumpled piece of paper and dropped it into the plate.
***
Reverend Campbell was a patient man who knew that if God wanted his church to continue to offer a homeless ministry, the resources would be provided. However, he was running out of hope. He acknowledged that the doors would close the following weekend without a large cash infusion. Both he and the congregation had done all they could, already pouring out their hearts and resources in abundance.
Seated in his study on the second floor of the parish hall, Reverend Campbell was going through the items in the offering plate when a small crumpled piece of paper caught his eye. Opening it, he realized it was a Graball lottery ticket—and an unsigned one at that. So no one had a prior claim on it. Now, why would anyone put a lottery ticket in our collection plate? he wondered. Curiosity quickly set in, and the preacher fired up his desktop computer. I’m going to check the numbers to see if we won anything, but surely not. The screen came to life, and he pulled up the lottery website.
Reverend Campbell quickly saw that there had been a winning number drawn in the Graball game. Indeed, someone had even won $1 million that had yet to be claimed! His inquiring brown eyes looked down on the number boxes on the ticket, and with his right index finger he touched each one as he compared them to the winning numbers on the screen. Then he said the numbers aloud: “8-6-3-0-9 and 4.”
The matching numbers were unmistakable. Emotion quickly overwhelmed this humble man of God. “A miracle!” he shouted. “A million dollar miracle to save the church’s homeless shelter.” Tears streamed down the clergyman’s face. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you,” he sobbed as he buried his reddening face in his hands.
***
Jake and Gwen were with their two children in their regular pew on Sunday morning. Their mood was somber. Gwen was well aware of the church’s dire financial challenge with the homeless shelter. Jake was still stewing over his careless loss of his lottery ticket.
Reverend Campbell began the service in a most unusual way with a special announcement: a bonanza of money had come to the church to keep the homeless shelter open. Gwen was beside herself when Reverend Campbell broke the news. How had this come to be? she wondered. The pastor didn’t waste any time explaining. “God dropped a winning lottery ticket into our collection plate,” he stated. “The winning numbers were 8-6-3-0-9 and 4. Those numbers,” he continued, “will forever hold a special place in this house of worship…God’s house.”
Jake’s ears perked up. He could not believe what he was hearing. That was his lottery ticket. The numbers the minister had just called out were his numbers!
But it didn’t take long for the reality of the moment to hit Jake. He quickly understood that his special numbers now belonged to God. What he had just witnessed opened his eyes to his own foolishness—and selfishness—in that relentless quest for riches he did not need. Foolishness, he thought. Jake then came to understand that his wife had it right all along.
In making the joyous announcement of the windfall, Pastor Campbell could not pass up the opportunity to talk about stewardship. And, as he did, Jake took Gwen’s hand and squeezed it; she turned and smiled at her husband. Then Jake looked up silently with closed eyes. His lips appropriately mouthed, “Amen.”
