Sunday Morning Message: A Message from God

Yesterday morning in the hospital I was standing in the corridor and for no reason my eyes were focused on the number of the room across the hall, one door down, which was 416.

Then I heard over the PA system for Doctor 164 call number bla bla. 416 and 164! Each number is the jumbled version of the other.

When I worked a the Postal Service that would have been interpreted as a sure message from God giving you a strong hint what the Cash 3 lottery number would be at the next drawing. My co-workers would play numbers like that occurrence often… a few times a day.

They won sometimes which confirmed their religious belief. They lost even more so, but chose to ignore any messages that might be in that.

I think if one plays as often as they did, between 10 and 30 games a day you are bound to win eventually. The odds were with you.

Also on that same thought wave, when I worked in data collection at the Atlanta Post Office on the radio early in the a.m. on Sunday morning was a Sister So and So who claimed she had a direct hot line to Jesus himself. If you visited her at her suite at the Georgian Terrance Hotel she would give to you to some scriptures in the Bible that would tell you what you needed to know for financial independence. In other words if you gave her a so-called donation, she would give you some numbers which could be scriptures in the Bible… but it could also be what the upcoming lotto numbers were to be. Sister So and So had to ladies from our office to pay her a visit and give her a sizable donation…. And they didn’t win.

Now, I am wondering how many charismatic leaders misinterpreted a message they might have thought came from God and led their followers in the wrong direction…. Tch tch. Shame shame.

Gambling With Computers, a Religious Thing

Are you a person who likes to take a chance now and then? Or maybe you are one who likes to take a chance more often, maybe you are a high roller, maybe you live your life in the fast lane, so to speak.

Not me! I remember playing marbles “for keeps” one time in grammar school and losing the prettiest marble I ever owned. It taught me a value lesson about gambling: Cheat.

Seriously, it taught me taught me not to gamble unless I was ready to accept losing. I didn’t gamble again until I was in high school and our lunch every day was 25¢. Sometimes we would match our quarters… sometimes I would lose and sometimes I would win… either way, it didn’t matter, I skipped lunches most days anyway – it was mostly a social thing.

Several years ago Anna and I went to Cherokee, North Carolina, to see the “Unto These Hills” play about the plight of the Native American Indians. While in town we went into the reservation’s casino. We decided we would gamble on blackjack. We decided $10 would be our limit.

I doubt if I fitted the James Bond image in Casino Royale. With my frantic look I probably more like a desperado. I think I bought chips – I don’t think I used real money – there is probably something of a trick to your mind – it you are not playing with real money, and playing with colored chips – well, it is something like playing with Playdoh Money – it is not as hard mentally to lose. I played blackjack with a computer. I think it was 50¢ a game – or a 50¢ token. I think I played good. It took that machine two whole hours to take my ten dollars.

To give you an idea of my desperately holding onto the $10 worth of chips think of a wet rat holding for his life onto a piece of wood in a flood.

To make it complete, all was needed was a female dancehall robot laugh in my face and walk off to find another sucker and two bigger robot thugs grab me by both arms and throw me out with the music of a player piano playing in the background…. But I was hurt enough - $10 is $10 (which reminds me of a joke I will not tell now).

And I haven’t gambled since.

But I do play the Georgia Lottery.

I play the Mega Millions and the Fantasy Five weekly.

Wait! Let me explain.

I forgot which James Michener book I read this in but it was one of his massive infinite-detailed books a farmer threw a certain amount of what he harvested back to the soil.

And I read a similar thing in another Michener book that an Indian did the same with game he had killed.

It was a religious thing – to pay back a portion of what was given you.

The Georgia Lottery funds the Hope Scholarship in Georgia. The Hope Scholarship is for students that keep a certain high academic average. Thousands of Georgia resident students with good grades earned their education with the Hope Scholarship, my two sons included.

So, each week I play the Georgia Lottery with the help of a software program try to pick the winners – I try to win, just in case I overpaid and the system and it wants to give a certain portion back.

Easy Come, Easy Go

I forgot to mention that I won $18 dollars on the Fantasy 5 Lottery yesterday. Technically I won $17 and a free game.

If I was you I wouldn’t run down to the bar closest to my home and wait for me to come in and tell the bartender “Drinks on the house!”. And I doubt if you will see standing on the street corner lighting my Cuban cigars with a flaming $100 bill.

The free game ticket lost, so I might has well farted in the wind. With the $17 I turned around and bought $5 worth of lottery tickets, for the next 3 Fantasy 5 drawings and the next two Big Game drawings.

Now I have $12 left of my prize money - just enough for a nice bottle of wine with a screw top and a big sack of spicy pig skins and go sit in a nice wind proof alley and enjoy the good life.