They Call Me Lucky

Well, that is what my late brother used to say. He used to can himself laughing whenever he said so for he was very lucky indeed. Or was he?

When he bought a raffle ticket at the local school or church bazaar, he won it much more than often. He did not have any special number that he played every time as some other ‘lucky’ people sometimes have. He played just anything. Sometimes he even asked the person selling the tickets to mark just any number. We used to take friendly side bets on him winning the raffle. Few people were willing to bet against him winning. As for myself, no raffle ticket I ever bought has won any prizes.

It was like that at the casino as well. Never any spectacular wins but he mostly went home with more than what he came with and he often treated us to a meal on their money while at the casino. I’m not really a gambling man but I loved going to the casino with him. I even gambled a few Rand away at such occasions.

I was the better golf player between the two of us but he managed that elusive perfect fluke, something I never got right. In fact, not even a close miss.

He never won the lotto jackpot but on two occasions he managed to get five plus. He always laughed and blamed his unfailing luck to his Jewish sweetheart he had when he was young. He was the proverbial smiling pawpaw, never with a long face. Always smiling or laughing.

But it seems that one can have only so much luck before it runs out. His luck finally ran out in 2000 when, at the age of 41, he collected a bullet in his stomach. He was taken to hospital and stabilized but 8 hours later he was in the morgue. The autopsy found that the doctor had pushed a drainage pipe through his heart. With a little better luck, he would have been alive today. As they say, shit happens!


May this day turn out to be very lucky for you.

PS
Resumed with the renovations yesterday. Will pop in from time to time.