After seeing a couple of my friends go to Canada to avoid the draft and several others comb the country for open spots in any military reserve unit, I considered doing the same, but decided to take my chances. Although declared I-A and expecting to be drafted, I was hired by McDonnell Douglas as an engineering planner and got two occupational deferments before the draft lottery was instituted.
On the night of the lottery, a bunch of my friends and I got together to watch. After waiting for a seeming eternity, and enduring groans of disappointment and in one case, crying that turned into heaving sobs when early numbers were drawn, I had to go to the bathroom, which I did in record time. After returning, I desperately asked my buddies if my number had been pulled, and no-one could remember! They were all concentrating too hard waiting for their own to be pulled. After another eternity when number 300 or so was drawn, I was convinced my number had been pulled while I was in the bathroom. No one will ever believe the exhilaration I experienced when number 310 was called and it was November 5, my birthday. It was like I had been given another life to live.