Posted on 04/04/2012 5:59:40 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Jack Whittaker
Home: West Virginia
Won: $315M in 2002
One of the saddest tales is that of Jack Whittaker, the cowboy-hat-wearing West Virginia contractor who scored a $315 million Powerball win in December 2002.
Already a millionaire, Whittaker pledged to give 10 percent of his fortune to charity. But legal and personal problems took a heavy toll, and he started hitting the sauce and hanging out at sleazy jiggle joints.
Just eight months after his big score, he was robbed of $545,000 in a strip club. A month later, his granddaughter died of an overdose from drugs bought with an allowance from him. A short time later, his daughter also died of a drug overdose
I wish Id torn that ticket up, Whittaker sobbed to reporters at the time.
By January 2007, Whittaker told cops thieves had emptied his bank accounts.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
That is probably the one positive thing about Obama.
No matter what he does, as long as America can stay America, he’ll be nothing more than a footnote of a pimple.
That’s only about 5450 hundred dollar bills. That can fit into a small suitcase easily enough.
Most lotto winners hang on to the bulk of their winnings, some flit it away, but that is the way of many people who work for their money, many flit it away while some save and build for retirement.
Lottos are not evil, they don't make people into idiots. Give me 345 some odd million bucks and I can guarandamntee you I will still have most of it until the day I die.
Well said. Journalism rarely rises above a tabloid focus on either end of the bell curve of behavior and then predictably reports what they find there as everyday, garden variety normal.
One of my “regular” beggars is a guy that comes in every so often - with the same story every time. He says his grandmother just died and he needs money for gas to go out of town for her funeral. One time I said - you told me the same thing last time you asked for money - he said, “Oh” and walked out. One of Obama’s people.
One of my favorites, and one that I have had pulled on me several times, is the guy comes up to you and says that he has a job that he is to start on monday(or whatever day of the week)and he just needs a few bucks to tide him over. I always ask them what the job is and what it entails and how much it pays. They can never answer the questions. Needless to say I don't give them any money.
Boyfriend and I were coming out of a restaurant one afternoon, and a woman was standing outside soliciting passers-by.
She claimed she was employed as a nurse’s aide in Ohio, and had come to PA for a relatives funeral but didn’t have any money to get home or get a meal. She asked me if I could help her out and stated “anything would be appreciated” and that she would mail me a check once she got home.
Well, I wasn’t too sure of her story and just handed her $10, of course not expecting her to pay it back. She took it, but looked disappointed and asked if I could give her more!
Anyway, soon a guy in an Obama ‘08/Hope & Change t-shirt walked by and she hit him up. He just shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
I guess I was the only patsy.
Maybe you could have just used it more wisely.
This happened recently and it really made me mad - a well-dressed and well-fed looking woman comes in (I recognized her because she had been in several times before) and hands me a handwritten note saying that she was a deaf-mute and needed some money to buy food for her children and diapers for her baby.
I turned her away, because I know she gets money from somewhere & I was tired of being manipulated like that. Well, a little while later - a little girl, about 8 years old - comes in and hands me a note. This one says that her mommy is a deaf-mute and would I please help them out with a little money for food and diapers? That just killed me that she was using her children for something like that. I gave her a dollar because I felt sorry for her.
Some time later, I saw her walking up the street with 3 little children. Future parasites. I just shook my head in disgust.
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