Dick Wins a Car

As I was going through some old paperwork in my office a few days ago, I found this ’ON THIS DATE’ clipping from the December 31, 2012 issue of the Times News newspaper of my home town of Lehighton, PA. Even though this event took place almost 60 years ago, I remember it like it happened yesterday.

Mary Jane and I had gotten married in June of 1959. I was working in Cincinnati, OH at the time but had accepted a position at Penn State in State College, PA as an instructor in the Chemical Engineering Department where I would be able to start my graduate work toward MS and PhD degrees in ChE. We had moved to State College in early September, but we were spending the Christmas holidays at my parent ’s home in Lehighton.

A local department store was giving away a brand new 1960 Ford Falcon to some lucky winner. The store gave one ticket for the car for every 50-cent purchase made at the store during the Christmas holidays. My mother, since she lived in Lehighton, had done a fair amount of shopping at the store and so had quite a few tickets for the drawing. We had also done a little shopping there, so we also had a few tickets. The drawing for the car was to be held at the Lehighton Municipal Building on Second Street and you had to be present to win.

The night of the drawing, Mary Jane had a date with her sister Joan to go shopping so I was on my own for the evening. My mother said to me, "Take my tickets and yours. Go to the drawing. If you win, you can have the car ", obviously not having much expectation that I would in fact win. So, I took all of the tickets and headed for the drawing.

There was quite a large crowd present for the drawing. I happened to meet my high school basketball and baseball coach, George Bibighaus, in the crowd, so we chatted together while we waited for the drawing for the car. The rules for the drawing, in addition to having to be present to win, were that they would draw a ticket and read its number. They would allow up to three minutes for someone to come forward with the winning ticket. If no one came forward within the three-minute time limit, they would draw another ticket and repeat the process until there was a winner.

So, I’m standing in the crowd with George when they draw the first ticket and read the number. No one from the audience responded. They read the number a second time, and standing just to my right, I heard someone say, "I’ve got it! " and he headed to the podium to claim the car. However, when he got to the podium, they were unable to find his winning ticket. They said that he had the number on his list, but they were having trouble finding the actual ticket.

Like most everyone there, I had made a list of the ticket numbers I had. For example, my list said I had ticket numbers 000236 thru 000336, 000762 thru 000789, and so on. The fellow that was claiming the car also had a list of his ticket numbers. At the bottom of his list was the winning ticket number that had been called. But they could not find the actual ticket. It was then that they realized that what had happened was that, when they read the number the first time, this guy wrote the number at the bottom of his list. When they read the number the second time, he looked down his list and seeing the number at the bottom of his list, he thought he had the winning ticket and went forward to claim the car. But he could not produce the actual ticket itself.

Now some people might say that this guy was trying to cheat by claiming the car without having the actual winning ticket. I don’t believe that was the case. I believe the guy just got excited when they read the number the second time and seeing the winning number on the bottom of his list, thought that he really had the winning ticket.

At any rate, after realizing that this guy did not have the winning ticket, they drew another ticket, and read a number that I had on my list. When I realized the number was on my list, I said, "Hey, George. I’ve got it! " and I headed for the podium. Fortunately, I was able to produce the actual winning ticket and so I was the winner of the car.

To be clear, it actually was one of my mother’s tickets that was the winner. At the time, we were expecting our first child in May and were driving a small recently-purchased 4-door Renault Dauphine that got 40 miles to the gallon. My dad was working as a butcher in Reading, PA, about 50 miles away and had to make the drive every day to work. So, my dad could have used a more economical car to go back and forth to work and we could have used a bit larger car to accomodate our growing family. So, we all agreed that my dad would take our Renault and we would get the new Ford Falcon. So, we all benefitted from the win of the car. Quite a Christmas, don’t you think?

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