Posted on 12/21/2002 7:34:45 AM PST by GeneD
If you saw Wednesday's Herald, you, too, probably got a warm feeling looking at the picture of Richard and Betty Harrington, the ``miracle couple'' from Wakefield whose worries over staggering medical bills vanished when he realized he'd won $4 million with a scratch ticket.
Who could help but rejoice for this woman who survived a double-lung transplant and her husband whose health insurance was canceled?
Read on.
``I'll admit I was torn,'' Ruth said. ``Obviously I was happy for them because they deserved a break. But what drove me crazy was wondering how many other people who never bought a ticket will now take up the habit, hoping they'll get lucky, too.
``No one was any happier about that story than the folks who run the Lottery, especially coming just before Christmas when everyone needs a little extra cash. Sales will probably quadruple, but so will the heartaches they'll cause.''
Ruth, now 70, has shared her story here before but asks for anonymity out of respect to family members.
Her father, ``whom I dearly loved,'' had a steady job with Hood Milk when the Depression began but lost it to an addiction that would eventually claim his marriage, too.
``He loved to gamble,'' she recalls. ``He would gamble on anything; it made no difference. Put two cockroaches on the floor, and he'd want to bet you which one would reach the wall first. He would take the money customers gave him, receipts he was supposed to bring back to the plant, and gamble it all away. For a long time they just took it out of his pay, but finally the company got fed up and fired him.
``Now we were on welfare, and how my mother suffered as we moved from flat to flat because of evictions. I remember going from Greenly Place to Sylvia Street in Jamaica Plain, then to Newark Street in Roxbury, and back to JP on Call Street. I can still hear my father saying what he planned to do for us `when my ship comes in.' My mother would call out the window to him as he left, crying, telling him how much we needed that welfare check, and he'd holler, `Don't worry, I'm going to double it for you.'
``Those are memories you never forget. So when I see stories about how wonderful the Lottery is, it sickens me. It may be wonderful for a lucky few, like the ones you had on Page 1, but it's such a disaster for many families that I hate seeing it portrayed as harmless fun.''
That same day's paper also carried a front-page story predicting casino gambling would be a boon to the commonwealth, declaring, ``The potential windfall from casinos would outweigh likely social costs.''
Really? Try telling that to those whose lives have been devastated. One Boston attorney, who grew up on Mission Hill, comes to mind; you've read her story here before, too.
``Four of us were raised by my mother and supported by public assistance. She had such an addiction to gambling that most nights our dinner was one can of tomato soup mixed with three cans of water. To have a piece of bread was like having dessert. Shoes and sneakers were replaced only when the nuns complained. New clothing never came; we shopped at Morgan Memorial near Kenmore Square. Breakfast was a rarity, but lunch was a must, thanks again to the nuns.
``We had a bad enough time dealing with her going to bingo every night, playing the Spanish and Irish street numbers and keno at the local post. So you can imagine the impact on our household when the Lottery was born; now she could waste away more of the little we had with the greatest of ease, thanks to the state.''
And therein lies a question no one's eager to address: Is it appropriate for the commonwealth to have a rooting interest in the misery of its citizens?
Oh, it's easy enough to rationalize; the cash flow is obvious. But rationalizing simply means finding a good reason for doing something we know is wrong.
``My mother never drank, smoked or did drugs,'' the attorney points out. ``But I can tell you about addicted gamblers and hungry kids.''
Do you think stories like that concern proponents of casino gambling?
Pardon the expression, but don't bet on it.
I guess good ol' Father Whoozit could have had more concern for the children of his parish by keeping the number of bingo games lower, and setting a limit on the number of cards one could play, but as the guy closest to the situation, he couldn't. So now its the fault of the eeeeeevil casinos and race tracks.
Kill off all but charitable gambling - its for the children.
< /sarcasm >
Since the lottery, etc. etc. are either state run or state endorsed/permitted could a gambling addict and/or his family sue the state? You know, for something like "pain and suffering", "alienation of affection" (the addicted person loses all interest in his family), "no warning that this is addictive". You know, the kind of stuff they trot out against Big Tobacco and the like?
"...Her father, ``whom I dearly loved,'' had a steady job with Hood Milk when the Depression began but lost it to an addiction that would eventually claim his marriage, too. ... ``He loved to gamble,'' she recalls..."
Awwwww...
Poor Ruth...
The product of some day-late-dollar-short whitetrash family, she blames her mortification on the gambling.
And -by God- she'd move Heaven and Earth to see to it that YOU can't enjoy buying a damn Powerball ticket if only she could.
Because, you see, even though she admits that she comes from nothing, somehow she knows everything about what's best for US.
Hey Ruth...
Do the world a favor and take a long walk on a short pier.
My economics professors always called it, many years ago, the 'Inverse Tax on Math Skills.'
They're probably all out buying Powerball tickets while wearing those bignose/glasses/mustache things.
I stay in the Powerball game for one ticket in every drawing. That's about $100 a year, which is chump change in anyone's book these days.
If I ever win I'll set up trusts for my kids and their cousins, build something the church needs and buy a Hummer.
Then, at some point, I guess I'll die and go to Hell for gambling.
I only wish that I were clever enough to have come up with that phrase. I picked it up years ago from a source lost to time, so feel free to use it all you like.
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