I think I knew the secret to living like I’d already won the lottery when I was just a child.  I’m also pretty sure I didn’t know what the lottery was.  And my concept of finances was probably pretty simplistic.

I’m sure my parents must have thought that I did think we’d won the lottery.  Drum lessons, baseball games, Disney World and lots of Hardy Boys books.  Not to mention lots of the things that kids don’t really think about – braces, glasses, clothes, and it seemed like I was always getting new shoes.

I don’t think I was a spoiled brat, at least not all of the time. 

There was one particular instance that does stand out, though.  I remember being in a store with my Dad.  It was like a K-Mart or Rose’s or something like that (back in those days, there were no Wal-Marts or Targets). 

I was eight or nine, and had developed an addiction to the Hardy Boys.  I didn’t just read the books, I collected them.  I had a big shelf where dozens of miniature Franks and Joes looked back at me from the blue spines of all those books.

For those who don’t know, the Hardy Boys, Frank and Joe, were brothers, sons of a famous detective.  They solved crimes.  Sometimes with the help of their friends, but most of the time on their own.  And like comic books, each adventure was numbered, starting with The Tower Treasure, which was number one.

When I started reading them, there were fifty-some books in the series, though new ones continued to come out every so often.  Fifty books seemed like a huge number to me when I started reading them, and I thought they’d go on forever.  I’d never be able to read so many books!

And my collection grew.

The stores didn’t always have the complete series, so there were holes in my collection.  So I had the first three, and then five through eleven, but I didn’t have #4 The Missing Chums.  And on and on it went.

Anyway, I was in this store with my Dad, and they had an end cap that had a bunch of Hardy Boy Books.  At this point, my collection had grown quite a bit, and I was used to going to stores and seeing that I already had all the books they had out.

This time, though, they had two that I needed - #31 The Secret of Wildcat Swamp and #37 The Ghost at Skeleton Rock.  I needed both of them!  NEEDED!

My Dad told me I could have one.  I couldn’t choose between the ghost and the wildcat.  I had to have them both.  They were only $2 each (or something like that), so what was the big deal?  Just get me both!

He told me I could pick one or I couldn’t have any.

How unreasonable!  And unfair!  Wasn’t reading a good thing?  Shouldn’t I be rewarded for wanting to read?  Didn’t I deserve both books?

It turns out that I didn’t.  And I didn’t get any books that day.

Eventually, I got over that gross injustice.  And I’m sure my Dad got over my behavior.

As a kid, I didn’t really have a concept of money.  I didn’t know enough to feel gauche about the way I acted in that store.  Luckily, those kinds of incidents were rare. 

My parents always took care of me and whatever I needed.  I didn’t often make outrageous demands, and I didn’t always get every little thing that I wanted.  I never felt deprived.  I always had clean clothes, and there was always a jar of Skippy and a box of Cocoa Pebbles (or some other sugar-enriched cereal) in the pantry.

And while I might be a little overly simplistic, back when I was still in single digits, I was living like I’d already won the lottery.

The trick is doing that now, when I’m a grown-up (more or less).

A lot of it is attitude.  I don’t need that Pokemon mentality of “gotta catch ‘em all”.  There will always be more.  Newer and better ones.  Or additional ones that compliment, or contrast with, the other collection.  There is no placebo that satisfies.  It never ends.

The truth is, all that stuff isn’t really important.

I recently saw the pilot episode of the sitcom “Wings”.  If you don’t know, or don’t remember, this was a 1990’s TV series about two brothers who ran a small airline in Nantucket.

As the series opened, the brothers were estranged.  Their father had just passed away, and he left them a package, telling them that they were rich.  The brothers get together and open the package, only to find a key.  The key leads them to a series of safety deposit boxes and lockers, each holding a key to the next one.  The last key opens a locker back at the Nantucket airport, and there they find a picture of themselves, arm in arm, when they were kids.  The father wrote on the back of the photograph, “You’re rich.”

Financially, I’ve never been rich.  There have been times when I’ve been comfortable, when my income was greater than my out-go.  Times when it was just me, and I had my own Skippy and Cocoa Pebbles in the panty, when I wasn’t concerned about what bills were in today’s mail or if there was enough gas in the tank to get me through the week.

Sure, those things are nice.

Next weekend, I get to fly back east to see my parents, my siblings, my brother-in-law, my nephews, my niece and my uncle. I don’t get to see any of them as often as I’d like, since we live so far away.  And that’s one of the first things I’ll change when I really do win the lottery.  In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy spending the weekend with so many of my favorite people.

This past week, I got to see my son perform in a choral concert at a local community college.  He’s a senior in high school, and he has an amazing voice, which I’ve no doubt will take him far.  A local private university desperately wants him to come sing there, and we’re going on a tour of the campus this weekend. 

After the show, his mother, his sister and I took him to IHOP (his choice).  We talked and laughed and ate pancakes.  No amount of money could have made that evening any better.

I have already won the lottery.

Ken

P.S. - Hi Marvin!  It's all there, "When I was just a child...", gauche and placebo!

I didn’t win the lottery last night. 

About a month ago, when the Mega Millions climbed towards a billion dollars, and everyone (including Ann Rice) bought tickets, I’d decided that I was going to live my life as though I’d already won the lottery.  Minus that initial insane wave of rampant spending, of course.

I’m fortunate in that I do have a pretty good life.  We could all make a list of what we don’t have, what we never got to see and what we couldn’t afford to do.

But what about the things we already have, have already seen and have already done?  It seems like one of the hardest things for people to do is to simply appreciate what they have.  We’re conditioned to want more in a time when much of what we do spend our money on has built-in obsolescence – the way your new laptop is out of date before you even get it home to install last year’s version of Microsoft Office.

I can look around the house as I type this and see so many things that were so important to have, such necessities – until they were added to the ever-growing collection, instantly changing from a highly sought after Toy Of The Month into one more piece of clutter.

I have a lot of books, CDs and DVDs.  Being in radio, I used to pretend that I needed these items for work.  They became my raison d’ être of my job.  At a moment’s notice, I might need an instrumental version of an Abba song or a clip from “The Wedding Singer”.  I might need to grab the theme from the third season of “Leave It To Beaver” or find the particular line in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” that begins “Whereat With Blade, With Bloody Blameful Blade…”

Of course, the Internet itself has rendered most of that unnecessary.  I can quickly do a search on a quote and have multiple sources within seconds.  And I can pay Rhapsody and Netflix for subscriptions to have a generous library of music, movies and television shows all at the ready.  And for what those sites don’t have, there’s always YouTube.

While that may have slowed it down a bit, that hasn’t changed that feeling that I need to have these things.  And to maintain them.  The having became the important thing.  But besides having these things in my extensive collection, do I really appreciate them?

Here’s a look at some of my CDs.  You can’t tell from this picture, but they’re all alphabetized by artist.  Pretty, aren’t they? 

These are just my Christmas CDs.  They’ve all been ripped into my computers, and I use them for my Christmas station.  What you don’t see in this picture is the other bookcases of CDs, the non-Christmas ones, which are easily four times what you see in that photo.  And that doesn’t include the special book case I have, with doors, that house all my Beatles and Beatles-related CDs (and Rolling Stones’ CDs, too).

I haven’t listened to them all.  I probably haven’t listened to a lot of them.  I could probably listen to one or two every day, ones I haven’t ever played, and not hear the same one twice for the rest of the year.

DVDs are getting that bad, too.  And what’s worse, many of those aren’t even opened.   In fact, there are some that I have multiple copies of, just because I forgot that I already had it.  I think I have three copies of “The Big Lebowski”.

And there are books.  Overflowing the shelves.  Some still in boxes from when I moved here over six years ago.  How many of those haven’t I read?  I couldn’t guess.  But I have them.

If I just started appreciating the things I have, it would be like I’d been on a shopping spree.

Of course, it’s not just about things.

I work hard.  Too much.  The days blend into one another sometimes.  And the weekend is always a shining beacon of hope, waiting for me at the end.

I live in Sunny San Diego, about half an hour from the ocean.  And the ocean for me is a kind of therapy.  After a particularly difficult week, I can spend an hour at the beach, staring at the waves, and feel recharged, filled with transcendental calm.  In fact, this is the wallpaper on my cellphone...

There have been a lot of difficult weeks lately.  And when Friday finally rolls around, I think I’ll hop in my convertible, put the top down and head west to the ocean. 

But life happens, and I don’t make it nearly as often as I’d like.

I find myself getting angry sometimes, when I’m unable to shirk my responsibilities – as a husband, as a father, even as a pet-owner.  It isn’t fair.  Everyone else gets to do what they want.

Seriously, I have thought that.

Instead, though, I need to appreciate what I have.  I have kids who aren’t going to be living at home forever (despite what I sometimes think).  Kids who even like to spend time with their mom and me (sometimes). 

And anyone who’s ever had pets knows how sadly temporary they are.  We have three dogs, all roughly the same age.  And a cat.  And one day, I’ll be heartsick about at least seventy-five percent of them.

And most important, I have Lisa.  She’s very busy, plans much too much and tends to forget to tell me that she’s obligated me for something.

She is also, by far, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.  I used to think I wanted to find someone that knew me and loved me anyway.  This is better than that, because she knows me and loves me because of who I am, not in spite of it.

And as sappy as that might sound, that’s quite a treasure. 

I hope you have someone in your life that makes you feel that kind of windfall.  Figuring out how to appreciate them, as well as the other bric-a-brac you’ve already accumulated, is a great way to feel like you’ve already won the lottery!

Ken

P.S. - Hi Marvin!  It's all there - "Whereat with blade:, foreign expression (raison d’ être) and even transcendental!