I recall this night very well. Sitting on the couch with Pat the day before her birthday waiting to see which way my life would go. But I recall the show being live, perhaps on a different channel. By live I mean from start to finish without a reporter commenting as with this video. In the very beginning of this clip, as he is talking, if you listen very carefully you can hear April 17th being called out as number 260. As they drew the numbers and April 17th didn't come up I would get a little more relaxed, especially when it got to above 150 or so. But listening to all the numbers drawn before that was a nerve wracking experience. Not an easy evening to endure. Knowing that your fate was in the hands of someone picking a blue capsule out of that bin. And when I say I never won any lottery I will have to keep this in mind, because I did win that night. I think they only got as high as 195 in the actual call ups in that year. So I had a cushion of 65.
A little further explanation of the lottery can be found here: "lottery info"
A little further explanation of the lottery can be found here: "lottery info"
4 comments:
Test
ya know i watched the video and read the accompanying link and I am still confused about how it worked.
You said they called April 17th as #260 in the start of that vid, and your birthday is that date..what am i missing?
When you hear my birthday called out it wasn't at the beginning of the drawing, only at the beginning of the video clip. It was the 260th date that was drawn. By that time I was much relieved knowing I wasn't in the first two hundred, which made it a pretty safe bet that i wouldn't get drafted when I graduated.
The first persons drafted (number 001) had the birthdate of September 14th and were born between 1944 and 1950. The next group of draftees (002) had the birthdate of April 24th and were born between those dates. And so on and so on up to number 195 which is as far as they got that year.
Another link with dates and numbers is: http://www.sss.gov/lotter1.htm
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