When we lived in Newark in the 1970s, our neighbor Josie introduced us to her friend, a woman of about 50 that we already knew had won one of the first New Jersey lotteries, with a prize of a million dollars. Mimi said how wonderful that must be, but the woman seemed afraid we might ask her for some of it, and said a million dollars wasn’t really that much (although it was, in the 1970s), and went into a big explanation of why she and her husband were not quitting their jobs. They did not have great, interesting jobs you’d want to keep doing for the rest of your life; I think the husband was a school custodian.
Back then if you made $10,000 a year you were doing pretty well. I remember in the mid-1960s, the first year I ever made that much, how quietly proud it made me. By my ballpark estimate, if they took the cash-now prize option, after taxes they could have lived comfortably for another 40 years without working.
Maybe they just didn’t want to be together all day, and going to their jobs gave them a break from each other. Or maybe they wanted to leave it all to their kids or to the Church. The choice was theirs, but whatever the reason was, Mimi and I thought it was sad. When your ship comes in, you should get on it.