February 7, 2012--El Gordo

While down here in Florida, among other ways to get into the spirit of things, we play Powerball. Especially when the prize tops $100 million. It seems so simple--pick just six numbers and, voilà, cash in your ticket.

I say to Rona, "Why bother to win when the jackpot is only $50 million? It hardly pays to fantasize."

Which we then proceed to do, promising to share our winnings with all our family and friends. "We could pay off ___ 's mortgage," Rona says.

"And pay for ___ 's college tuition," I chime in.

"And then there's ___ 's car payments."

"Also . . ."

It's all magical thinking, particularly about ways to be generous. Imagining that the more generous our plans to distribute the wealth, the more likely the benevolent forces permeating the universe will bless us.

This is one of the ways we wile away the languid hours.

So far we have not gotten more than one winning number on any of our Powerball tickets. "What's the story with that benevolent force," I wonder out loud, "maybe we aren't being generous enough."

"You've taken to talking to yourself," Rona says, "Do I have to worry about you?"

On the other hand, in a tiny farming town in north central Spain, Sodeto, the entire village of 70 households just won El Gordo, the mammoth lottery that this time is paying Sodeto's winners a total of more than $950 million!

In all the time we have spent in Spain we were never able to figure out how El Gordo (the "fat one") works so I will not attempt to do so here. Suffice it to say that any given potential winning number can be subdivided many, many times and so it is not uncommon for the prize to be widely shared. What is unusual is for an entire town to divide the winnings among themselves.

One Sodeto farmer, Jose Manuel Pennela Cambra, prior to winning had been worried about how he would make payments on his new irrigation system. But his wife bought two shares of the ultimate winning number from the town's homemakers' association which turned out to be worth $260,000 and their son discovered two more his mother had purchased bringing their total winnings to $520,000. He told his son to keep looking for more but in the meantime he is no longer worried about paying the bank what he owes.

A member of the association tried to sell a ticket to a neighbor but she couldn't afford it because her husband was unemployed. She said she'd like to participate but needed to pay for the ticket later when she had the money. When the number was announced she still had not paid for a ticket and wasn't sure if a ticket had been set aside for her. She was nervous about enquiring, but when she did she discovered that her neighbor in fact had set aside a ticket for her. A lot of happy crying ensued.

Another farmer summed uo the town's feelings--"The best part is that isn't just me who won. Everyone won."

After reading about Sodeto in the New York Times, I said to Rona, "Maybe we can get everyone who lives in Delray to chip in for Powerball tickets and then we could be like an American Sodeto and . . ."

"You're becoming delusional," she said, "As for me, I'm going for a beach walk."

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PS--We didn't win Powerball but will keep trying.