GUEST COLUMN
MI CO-OP Community
One Million Dollars Short
M
Brian Maki, Alger Delta Cooperative member
oney. You earn, spend and save it all your life. Billions of dollars float from city to city, wallet to wallet, and from country to country. Without money, you would not have a place to live, a car to travel in, food in your belly, and a place to rest your head at night. Long ago, my father, Albert, was one million dollars short of winning the Michigan Lottery. My father religiously played the Michigan Lottery for years. After my father’s death in 1990, he left a black booklet at this workplace. I discovered lottery numbers written by him in this book, week after week, for over 20 years. His picks were written right next to the winning ones. The booklet’s tattered and worn cover told the tale of someone who had spent countless hours writing numbers, studying them, and dreaming about cracking the code to become the next big lottery winner. He kept this secret obsession from our family. I was 16 years old in 1987 when my father gave me a lottery ticket he had purchased and told me to watch the television drawing to see whether the numbers were a match. I remember watching the first ball rolling down into the holder: 16. I glanced back at the ticket: 16. A few seconds later, another ball rolled down: 28. Another match. This kept going until all numbers matched. “Mom,” I screamed, “the numbers match, the numbers match. Dad won a million dollars.” My sister, Wendy, who opened the front door, overheard what I had said and jumped for joy.
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“Having a million dollars doesn’t solve a thing. Life is a journey of climbing to the top of the mountain.” We all dashed into that back room, with smiles and tears of hope. My father was sitting there, calm as ever, watching a hockey game. I told him all the numbers matched. Without hesitation, he said, “Oh, that’s last week’s numbers.” He went back to watching the game. The moral of the story: Having a million dollars doesn’t solve a thing. Life is a journey of climbing to the top of the mountain. I know that having nothing means more than having it all. Brian is an IT Consultant in Marquette, Mich. A fun fact about Brian is that he made a 55-foot basketball shot at the buzzer (on his first attempt) after joining the team at the end of the season.
MICHIGAN COUNTRY LINES 17