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The Mt. Airy man, who transitioned from playing cards with his bunkmates to playing scratch-off games decades after his retirement from the service, had a properly measured response when collecting his five-figure prize at Lottery Headquarters in Baltimore this week.
"You’ve got to do a lot to excite me, and money is not one of the things that excites me," he mused. "I didn’t get into the Lottery until after I retired from the service," as it wasn't an option where he was stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, which did not have Lottery at the time.
He mused that his battalion typically stuck to card games, because off-post, "any kind of gambling was held in low regard."
These days, he's happy to indulge himself with the occasional scratcher, which proved fortuitous when he turned a $10 Money Rush scratcher into a $50,000 prize, just shy of the $100,000 jackpot on a ticket sold at Walmart in the 6700 block of Chesapeake Center Drive in Glen Burnie.
The veteran says he says he is strictly a Lottery guy these days, leaving behind card games and casinos, and when collecting his winnings this week, he had a perfect response, according to his daughter, who joined him in the winner's circle.
Asked about his plans for the prize, the veteran said he hadn’t given it much thought.
His daughter then entered the conversation, causally mentioning, “...maybe I’ll get a little bit of it.”
The dad affirmed that she, his youngest, as well as his other three grown children, would not be forgotten.
Money Rush has proven fortuitous for Lottery players since it went on sale in late July. To date, four of its second-tier $50,000 prizes have been claimed, leaving seven still in circulation. In addition, six of the nine top prizes of $100,000 have yet to be claimed.
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