50/50 DRAWS......

May I prefice this by saying, a big gambler I am not. I like a lottery ticket now and then, and when I was still working, I would often grab a coffee, a chocolate bar and a couple of scratch tickets, my three vices. Although admittedly, the chocolate bar addiction far outweighed any addiction to scratching latex off of paper tickets.

But every now and then..............

Now enter the new world of fundraising using the 50/50 premise. It's proven. It's easy. Most are quite basic. You pay the agreed upon sum, drop your money in, wait for the phone to ring. You get half, and the organization gets half. Pretty simple.

But there are an awful large number of these lotteries, even in our small area. And all are for a good cause. But not a lot of phones are ringing.......

I've won my fair share, I'll admit.

I won at the Souris Credit Union.

I won at the Souris Co-op.

Lots of my friends have won BIG at Rusty Elliott's.

And when a member of my family was in need of the funds supplied by these community lotteries, I was not ashamed to ask. Medical emergencies do not take holidays and there's no good time for them.

That's the other side of these 50/50s.

Fire departments are able to buy much needed equipment sooner than expected because of the generous community support.

Food banks also get regular and much needed support.

There's a 50/50 at the Souris Legion, a vital member of our community.

How about going fishing for 5's at the Fortune Community Center 50/50?

Then there's the Hi5 For Kids, going all across the Island, benefiting all our kids, and the occasional winner too.

The latest, I think is the COS lottery, with schools as the beneficiary, besides the winner of the 50/50.

There's tons more of course, some I'm sure I haven't even heard about, but when you think of it, that's a lot of balls in the air, and I haven't even touched on the Gold Mine Lottery supported by Montague Rotary and The Graphic.

I know some people who play so many lotteries that they keep a list so they won't A) forget to play, or

B) play twice.

It's folly to think it's any way to make money, I bet if some people counted up what they spend in a year against what they win in a year, it would be scary.

Some of these 50/50s organizations raise their half to help families in need if they must go off Island for medical reasons, it can come in pretty handy.

Then comes the day of the draw. Did I remember to play, or will this be the week I simply forgot, and as sure as there's shit in a cat, this is the one time my name will be pulled. That momentary panic, that total freeze. Who hasn't experienced it?

Hands up here!!

But it's all pretty harmless and we all take part. Sometimes I think of it as an "all or none" philosophy, do it or don't.

It's no different than Bingo really, and that is just a game of chance, and I imagine Bingo players just view it as harmless entertainment and an evening out. Who would ever believe it started out as a way for the Catholic Church to raise funds? Hm....

Does anyone remember the punch boards? Bordering on the illegal, they were always hidden out of sight. Jamie remembers them well, as they seemed to be in every little corner store and you had to ask for them. He was pretty lucky at it, again, just the luck of the draw.

Somewhere back in the recesses of my mind are enormous boxes of prizes that could be won in a weekly raffle at the old Black Rafter. I was a little kid, and probably played more with the empty boxes, but I have clear memories of "Puffs" which were what we'd call comforters today. They were bed covers, thick but light as a feather, reversible, lots of colors and the word "puff" just seemed apt. If you pulled the lucky ticket, you could choose from several different prizes and another one was a framed picture of Jesus or The Last Supper, they were quite large and I remember two things.

1) They were electric, you could plug them in and they had a small bulb at the top. (As if a full color reproduction of the Last Supper wasn't freaky enough without being lit up all night long.....)

2) They were holographic, if you looked at them straight on, they had one image, but if you moved a little, the image was different. They were magical to this kid, and obviously were a forerunner for today's 3-D holograms. If I could draw, I could reproduce them, the images are so vivid.

Well, lucky ot not, most of us are quick to take a chance on something. And if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Cheers til next time.