I can remember sitting in my parents’ living room, in front of the TV, with my best friend who was my age. We were both very anxious about the lottery and spent the time by making bad jokes about what our numbers would be and what would become of us. I remember my mother sitting with us as well. I am sure she was more anxious about our numbers than the both of us combined. It did not take long for the reality of the situation to hit us as the dates began to be drawn. My friend, who was not in college at the time, received a very low number, in the fifties as I recall. We remained pretty silent as the dates continued on. I was in college so I had some breathing room, but I was really worried about a number under 150 as I recall. That seemed to be the "you are gonna go" number. In any case the dates continued to roll by without mine showing. I began to worry that I had accidentally missed my date. We sat and watched as the numbers got higher and higher and my concern turned to real worry for my mother and I – surely we had missed my date! Now the numbers were in the 300’s and I knew we had missed my birthdate and that we would have to wait until the next day to find the numbers in the newspaper. Then it happened, June 14th fell on lottery number 356! Just 9 days short of the last number – how lucky can you get? My friend and I joked they would be drafting "old ladies and the handicapped before they got me". To this day, that has been my luckiest moment. By the way, my friend got out of the service after his physical for asthma. He had played 2 years of football and baseball in high school!
