What follows is a cautionary tale of the folly of buying happiness, of believing that most of our problems can disappear in the stroke of a check.
Sixty-six year old Bud Post of Venango County died this week. His life would have been a small town footnote were it not for the hand of fate that led Post to draw winning lottery numbers worth 16 million dollars.
How many of us believe that in that moment Post held the ticket to happiness, that what would follow would be a life rich in nectar and honey and devoid of the struggles that challenge most of us?
Post’s life is proof that the path to a fulfilling existence is not so simple.
It started with his landlady, who claimed that she pitched in for the tickets that Post bought and was therefore entitled to part of the pot. That led to several years of court battles, which ended with the courts giving the woman about a third of what Post won.
Then there were the wives, all six of them, the last one finally moving out after deciding that the reality of living with Mr. Post did not fulfill her dreams of life with a rich man.
Post’s brother was convicted of trying to kill him, and while brother killing brother is as old as the Garden of Eden, you’d have to believe that the money was somehow in the middle of the rancor between the Post brothers.
Bud Post also had no tools with which to handle that kind of money, spending, giving and getting swindled out of cash at a rate that would alarm a Rockefeller.
That led to further court proceedings and even bankruptcy filings. When Post died, his total wealth to be split between 9 children, 3 stepchildren and 44 grandchildren was less than a million dollars.
I will never forget the image of the Post mansion left empty by repo men, everything taken, from the furniture to the chandelier in the front lobby.
There is no greater monument to the hollow life that can exist within gilded walls.
Money is money and while it certainly creates opportunities it carries its own peril as well.
There are winners in life and there are losers, and the travails of Bud Post is proof that determining who is who goes far beyond a winning lottery ticket.