In his darkest moments, Jack Whittaker has sometimes wondered if winning the nearly $315 million Powerball game was really worth it.
The jackpot that was the stuff of dreams turned into a nightmare: His wife left him and his drug-addicted granddaughter — his protege and heir — died. He endured constant requests for money.
Almost five years later, Whittaker is left with things money can't cure: His daughter's cancer, a long list of indiscretions documented in newspapers and court records, and an inability to trust others.
"I don't have any friends," he said in lengthy interview with The Associated Press. "Every friend that I've had, practically, has wanted to borrow money or something and of course, once they borrow money from you, you can't be friends anymore."
Whittaker was a self-made millionaire long before he became a lottery winner, having built a pipeline business worth $17 million. Then he hit the Powerball in December 2002. It was then the largest-single jackpot ever.
The prize was worth $314.9. Whittaker opted for the lump-sum payout of $170 million — $93 million after taxes.
He still has plenty of money. And instead of retiring, the 59-year-old starts his day at 5 a.m., juggling ventures in construction, real estate, used-cars, even movies. Work is the last remnant of his old life.
Wittaker answers questions
"Nothing else is normal," he said, sounding simultaneously gruff and sad.
His appearance has changed little. His blue eyes still twinkle when he tells a joke, his cowboy boots are worn from wear, and his grin remains toothless. He's too busy, he says, to pay attention to looks.
Whittaker began working part-time for his father at age 10, pouring cement. At 14, he dropped out of school to work full time. He's owned some kind of business ever since.
"I was accustomed to making big money and making my own money, and I never could get interested in school again after that."
By his own estimate, he's brought water and sewer service to some 100,000 homes and still does some good by providing 200 high-paying jobs.
"Probably the lowest-paid man in my construction company is, I'd say, $36 an hour," he said. "That's a good wage for any part of West Virginia."
Whittaker's family never wanted for anything, and he admits they have long been accustomed to a lifestyle most would consider lavish.
With every change of the seasons, new wardrobes filled their closets. The paint job on one of his granddaughter's many cars cost $16,000. Even the family's marble mausoleum towers over nearby grave markers in the hilltop cemetery in Jumping Branch.
But winning the Powerball was a different kind of wealth that brought instant celebrity status.
Whittaker's struggles with drinking, gambling and philandering became public, and tales of his transgressions were retold with relish.
His home and car were repeatedly burglarized. At a strip club, thieves broke into his Lincoln Navigator and stole a briefcase stuffed with $245,000 in $100 bills and three $100,000 cashiers checks. The briefcase was later found, with the money.
Whittaker was charged twice with driving while under the influence and sued repeatedly, once by three female casino employees who accused him of assault.
Whittaker is also done with boozing — which, on his worst days, involved a fifth of vodka. He says he drank in part because he was worried about granddaughter Brandi Bragg, who shared his independent, headstrong personality and knew from a young age she wanted to run her Paw Paw's businesses.
So sad....
GOD, I feel so sorry for jack.I wonder if jack ever reads this lottery post websight.i know of a person that hit for 18 million dollars in the new yok lottery.this person ,like jack doesn't trust anyone .funny how all of us in here would love to win a lottery.i guess that saying ''be carefull what you wish for,you just might get it'' comes to mine.
To play or not to play, that is the question.
Am I the only one here who is irritated by the fact that someone already worth millions won the lottery? That's like when Jennifer Lopez's mom hit a million dollar slot machine jackpot. Sometimes I think God likes to have fun with us, perhaps because he knows it doesn't really mean anything.
Don't be ridiculous. The majority of Lottery winners go on to live very happy lives. Regarding your friend, I understand what it's like not to trust people, but those are the people you don't want in your life anyway.
Miss NYC, I guess it just goes to show you that anyone can win. I agree that it's frustrating when people with everything just get more and more of what they don't need. I just saw Todd's post below, and I agree that Mr. Whittaker handled his money very foolishly. It's a very sad story nonetheless. Anyway, your comment reminds me of some Yiddish proverbs about money. Here are the rough translations:
God loves the poor and He helps the rich.
Money is round so it rolls away.
Life is the cheapest bargain. You get it for nothing.
A great one for the Lottery:
Hope may give man strength, but not sense.
My favorite of all:
If the rich could hire someone to die for them, the poor would make a wonderful living.
The guy is/was a self-made millionaire (on paper). This is the kind of person -- at least work-ethic-wise -- that we want in this country, no? I look at it that "someone up there" was rewarding him for his hard work and determination.
The fact that he has a sad life now is a testament to his lack of common sense.
Mr. Sense had been with us for many years.
No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such value lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm and that life isn't always fair.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable Parenting strategies (adults, not kids, are in charge).
His health began to rapidly deteriorate when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place.
Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Mr. Sense declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student; but, could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Finally, Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, she spilled a bit in her lap, and was awarded a huge financial settlement.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.
He is survived by two stepbrothers; My Rights and Ima Whiner.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.
So sad as there was nothing common about Common Sense
Awesome post, hearsetrax!
I think you're right about that spilled-coffee award. I think that was the legal event that opened the floodgates -- when lawyers realized that the citizens of this country were willing to award millions of dollars to people who made dumb mistakes and hurt themselves.
hello justxploring.....what i was trying to say ,was just to have a plan ready to go if you were to hit big ,or a plan B for that matter
Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, she spilled a bit in her lap, and was awarded a huge financial settlement.
While I agree with the rest of your post, please look up the facts of the case since it looks like you don't know them.
No. Common sense vanished when folks started listening to one-sided views of reality and stopped checking out things for themselves (or applying a little common sense). The McDonald's case is a good example. Did you know that this store intentionally prepared the coffee to such an extreme temperature that no rational person would even think about taking it into their car if they knew about it; that the store had been repeatedly warned about it. Did you know that this woman did not just burn herself, but that the coffee destroyed skin, musle and tendons; that she required several operations and skin grafts and is permanently disfigured and disabled (limits on motions) AND that the award did not even cover the medical costs. She still ended up with medical bills (though likely fogiven).
As for the other things - do you really want to set up a theocracy in the U.S. and get rid of the free America that we all used to love? A boy kissing a girl - you know there must have been much more than that cute little headline portrayed. And the kids were likely filling those mouth wash bottles with vodka and Kool-Aide. Just not using common sense to believe every newspaper article.
We certainly all have different views about how the nation should be run and we can all agree that there are issues that need to be solved - but we don't need to make up any more problems, heh?
From what I understand, she was in her 80s and underwent numerous skin grafts. When the jury was shown the photographs and listened to the real story, they decided she had suffered and awarded her a lot of money. There had been several other lawsuits for over a decade that were settled quietly. This is what happens when the media gets a hold of a story.
I agree there many be many frivolous lawsuits, but most of them never make it to court. Many years ago I was seriously injured by a doctor, resulting in permanent nerve damage, and I can't begin to tell you how difficult it is to get anything settled, even just to get your medical expenses covered. I knew a woman who collected $500,000 from Home Depot due to their carelessness. There really wasn't any legal battle at all, since they settled quickly, but I heard all sorts of comments from coworkers, just like the spilled coffee ones. Everytime someone joked about going to Home Depot and slipping in an aisle, they forgot to mention how many knee operations this woman had and the metal plate in her leg.
The case is Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants, P.T.S., Inc., No. D-202 CV-93-02419, 1995 WL 360309 (Bernalillo County, N.M. Dist. Ct. Aug. 18, 1994). McDonald’s had settled more than 700 burn cases before this one came up – some of them settled for up to $500,000. The woman had asked for $20,000 from McDonald’s but was refused. The jury found her 20% negligent. I checked on the facts and found that the medical costs were not as high as I had remembers. Guess I need to check my facts too. But she receive third-degree burns (require grafting) over 6% of her body; she was hospitalized for 8 days and followed up with two years of treatment. I see these issues as one of common sense. Would a reasonable person accept the risk of taking the product into the car with full knowledge of the potential result. Most folks accept the risk of a nasty burn (pain and redness for a few days) if they spill their coffee. I don’t think anyone would accept the coffee if they were advised that they would need skin grafts if the coffee tipped over. In this case, McDonald’s created a situation that no reasonable person was aware of and so was responsible for the risk. My usual test on awards is whether I would accept the cash in exchange for the injury. If you would not, then the cash is probably not excessive. In the McDonald’s case, the jury awarded $200,000 and then reduced that by 20%. They did award her two-days worth of coffee sales as a punitive award ($2.7 million), but the judge reduced that to $480,000. In fact, McDonald’s still refused to pay and settled for less than the total award (secret amount).
Jack was already a millionare before winning the lottery. Did people prior to winning the lottery constantly ask for money from Jack. Was his homes and vehichles broken into for money prior to winning.
His private life was only known by a few.
Does winning the lottery put a different mentality in people towards the person that won.
I think it is a few things. (1) The simple notoriety. Some may think that he is rich but may not be sure or just not even be aware of a wealthy person until he/she gets press. (2) The ease of the wealth also plays a factor; people assume that easy come to someone else will mean easy go to them. (3) There may even be some entitlement feeling - either because they also put money into the game or because this was "fate" money and they deserve such a thing too.
Those who build up wealth slowly and build up press slowly also slowly learn to start locking up their lives. You are not likely to be able to walk up to Bill Gates on the street and chat him up for cash.
Sad cases for both Mr. Whittaker and Mr. Edwards.
Thank you Chuck for rechecking the data. Its important to get the facts :) I love this case for two reasons -1 it brought about the Labeling on items - such as warnings or cautions. 2ndly- MCD's scuffed at this lady when she asked for restitution for her claim. MCD thought they were to big to be tampered with. The justice system thought otherwise :) Sometimes its the principal of the matter -which most legal cases are fought upon.
Think what ya will of J Whitaker, poor judgements (which we have all done in our business and personal lives) , loss of family , and ups and downs in our financial lifestyles. I sincerely beleive that the press magnified most of his misfortunes for gains in their own business sales. News stories sell!
Bottom line is- He won .I don't envy in his decisions or winnings. His good deeds go unmentioned yet let it be a negative and folks feel compelled to down cast him as if they are some how a better breed of human (sorta Hitler style of thinking that there was a pure breed of humans to be had).
I would have been willing to be friends with Mr. Whittaker and not ask for money, only thing is Kanawha/Putnam is a solid 500 miles from here. Sometimes he goes to Atlantic and sometimes we do so there's a remote possibility of one day shaking his hand and being honored to meet him.
My best suggestion for him is to somehow get back together with his wife, get back to Church, and doing good deeds more indirectly (giving to charities, not individuals), and promising to henceforth live his life for the Lord and meaning it.
Jack needs to take back his life and learn to say no. People who beg God for things need to re-evaluate their relationship with the creator. I think Jack should take care of himself and his family and tell the rest of the world to go to blazes. His generosity has destroyed both his life and his soul. There is a lot to be said for working behind the scenes. There are many causes he can give his money to discretely. He can pick a new heir or adopt. Have faith Jack, there are people who wish you well and I am one of them. God bless and comfort you.
Does winning the lottery put a different mentality in people towards the person that won.
Thats a big YES
jack! hurry up and write a book!
I think one problem with posting is that many of us are misunderstood since there is no face to face dialog. It's often hard to express what you want to say in a few words. Then the person who is reading them might be in a good mood, bad mood or simply read them too quickly.
Anyway, What I meant by "don't be ridiculous" is I thought you were saying that maybe it's not such a good thing to win money and I would love to win a million dollars, even 2! I actually don't want the responsibility of winning $300 million and wouldn't have a clue what to do with it.
I agree with GameGirl that much of what we read has been blown up to get news stories. However, many of the big lottery winners go on with their lives and don't get into trouble. It must be frightening to get threats after winning a fortune, and his granddaughter might have felt confused by her new notoriety. The saddest thing is that people won't just leave the family alone. A great 2005 article which is 5 pages long is from the Washington Post. It shows you what kind of down-to-earth nice guy he is. It goes into detail and explains that Brandi (the granddaughter) was bitter & depressed because she had lost all her friends and her father had also committed suicide. After reading this article I have a better understanding of how Mr. Whittaker got into financial trouble.
Just one sentence pretty much sums up what happens when you tell everyone you won. Obviously this man cared about the needy in his community.
"Meanwhile, Jack had so much mail that he hired three people to open the thousands of begging letters. He hired a private investigator to sort out which supplicants claiming to have a child with cancer didn't even have a child."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36338-2005Jan25.html
"Meanwhile, Jack had so much mail that he hired three people to open the thousands of begging letters. He hired a private investigator to sort out which supplicants claiming to have a child with cancer didn't even have a child."
============================
just my .02
Quicker solution would've been to used them all as kindling and heat the house for the years to come ..... surely less of a headache ..... and yeah I know it seems rather cruel to ignore the inqueries of the truely needy and other wise without much hope other wise but then what difference would it really make in the long run ??
Why on earth would you feel sorry for jack whittaker? because he has ( or had ) 314 million dollars? Feel sorry for me because I do NOT have 314 million dollars. Yet.
You reap what you sow. Should you feel bad that he got robbed a few times? Maybe, until you find out he was robbed at strip clubs. Not the kind of place where good people hang out.
The thing you need to realize is you CANNOT change your morals just because you win the lottery. He may or may not have been a moral person before he won, but he surely wasn't a moral person after he won. I read many articles about how he kept feeding his granddaughter money even though she was spending it all on drugs. Did he killed her? maybe not directly, but indirectly? I do feel sorry for him in how that all transpired. I hope he can eventually come to terms with it.
You can change your life with that money. But you should not change your beliefs. I am not talking religon here, I mean you had principles before the money came, so you need to stick with those hard-earned principles that got you that far in life.
As for all the people that come into your life wanting money just because you won, thats crap. Everytime they win a few dollars they never throw any my way. They win 1,000 they dont throw me 10. They get a higher paying job they dont give me anything. Why should this be different?
I am not saying when I win I won't help people out, but I am saying none of them can demand that I give them something just because I won. I will help many people that I love. But it will be done anonymously. They won't know I won and since everyone close to me will receive anonymous money, they will just assume I received it that way too.
I like the idea that a gift or help should be given in such a way that the receiver never knows who gave it. I feel that I should not get a reward for helping others. The reward should be between myself and God. We know we did the right thing and thats all that mattered.
Money is like kids, they just intensify what already existed. Having kids will not make a bad marriage better, it will get worse, it will intensify. If you start on a solid foundation it will make things better. Money is the same thing. If you are not prepared for it, it will only cause heartache. Unless you learn very quickly what you need to do.
Jack, I actually do feel sorry for you and wish you well.
It also went by the wayside when media outlets, in a rush to be first, put out a story without getting all the facts or any facts for that matter, and the public forms opinions based on that. In worse cases, the media outlets deliberately omit certain facts, just to make the story more interesting. The news media, in my opinion, is supposed to just tell the story with all the facts, but these days, they do that less and less.
I don't necessarily feel sorry for him either, based on some of his behavior. You point out he got robbed a few times in front of a strip club, but he also had hundreds of thousands in cash in his vehicle. Who keeps that much money in cash in their car? Not a smart thing to do.
I also read an interview with him, I wish I could find it, where he basically said he could tell everyone to kiss off. It's referenced in the Wikipedia article about him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Whittaker_(lottery_winner)
Anyone who thinks that way isn't someone I can feel sorry for. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
OLD POOR PITTY ME.
I was thinking about Jack Whittaker saying he had a sad life. He doesn't have a corner on a sad life. Bad things happen to the good, bad, rich, poor, white, black etc. Grief does not discriminate. God help us all. I personally have had a lot of sadness in my life. My father committed suicide, my mother had MS and needed medical treatment. I used all my savings and my retirement fund to help her. My brother had leukemia but couldn't get a transplant because he didn't have $200,000. He died the hard way. He got a contaminated blood transfusion and I got Hepatitus B taking care of him in his last days. The nurses were letting him choke on his own blood because they needed the bed. I now have MS and it has moved to stage 2 progressive and everytime I get a cold, I lose the use of a limb. My mother committed suicide and I live with my older brother who is a paranoid schizophrenic. He tortures me when he thinks the world is out to get him. I lost my good job as a draftsman due to my illness but I now deliver pizza for minimum wage and I stay with my brother so he won't lose his home.
I prayed to win the lottery when my mother and little brother were alive so I could help them more but it wasn't meant to be. Jack won and so did many others. Jack you have the money to be happy, you just have to let yourself. I used to work with a man who said, "The only thing money can't buy is poverty." Good luck Jack and God bless.
If we get nothing else out of this, I'd say remember this from the OP folks:
"Every friend that I've had, practically, has wanted to borrow money or something and of course, once they borrow money from you, you can't be friends anymore."
Amen!
And I'd probably add that if a friend asks for money and you don't give it to them, you can't be friends anymore. So since you're gonna lose a friend either way, I think the choice is clear. Hold onto your money and let 'em walk away if that's what they're gonna do.
"Common Sense" is way over rated.
In many lexicons the word "common" implies "worthless."
The fact is that so called "common sense" consists largely of a bunch of meaningless platitudes of the "one size fits all" kind of thinking that has attempted to substitute banalities for reason and garbage sound bites for careful analysis.
It is easy to engage in lazy thinking that tries to place values by appeal to a few largely irrelevant examples. It is far more difficult to judge individual events on their individual merits.
Regrettably this sort of junk thinking has been increasingly prevalent and in fact, it is destroying the world. The worst part is probably that many people who have nothing to offer beyond junk thinking are actually proud of offering it.
Actually it happens that on a scale of 1 to 10 on things that matter to the future, the importance of the famous coffee cup case rates a zero. In fact, there is not one useful or insightful piece of information represented in the rant, not one matter raised that is worth a hill of beans. I mean are we so lazy and distracted that we are supposed to consider the issue of mouthwash in a high school as an indicator of our world's problems?
As for Mr. Whittaker, he is in trouble because he did not weigh events on an appropriately profound level. He blundered into his private disaster by exactly the kind of thinking that is evoked by the alleged "common sense" garbage. In fact, every single thing he has done has happened because of knee jerk thinking on his part, the idea that what happened to him was easily dealth with. One can easily see that he was confused about the gravity of things that are equivalent to confusing the gravity of being denied aspirin and being denied an abortion.
One seldom meets someone who whines about the value of so called "common sense" who has a sense of sense in any sense. In fact, the minute you hear from someone about so called "common sense," you should immediately be prepared for a bunch of big, big, big trouble, maybe disasterous trouble. In my lifetime, in fact, I wish that when I'd heard about "common sense" from some of the people I heard it from, that I had run for the door.
One of the greatest examples of a blundering fool with simplistic and foggy headed notions of the type who blathers about so called "common sense," can be found inhabiting the Oval Office of the United States, where reckless destruction is now taking place on a scale that will take generations to correct. This mindless twit is still trying to tell us that Saddam Hussein was Osama bin Laden and he seems not to have noticed that the latter guy is still alive. In fact, more Americans have been killed and maimed by this confusion than were killed and maimed in the World Trade Center bombing, now six years past, and largely forgotten, most rapidly by the same people who plastered their cars with American flags and "never forget" bumperstickers, and then "support our troops" yellow ribbons.
As for the "Support our troops" yellow ribbons, it was precisely that set of lazy thinkers toting this stuff who ignored the Walter Reed scandal - in which wounded soldiers were being forced to live with vermim, and being denied basic help. The continuous recycling of our tired and worn out soldiers in three or four tours in a battle that has nothing to do with US security, is also ignored by our lazy thinkers who think that life can be summed by the contents of a yellow ribbon and a "never forget" bumper sticker. In fact, the "Never Forgetters" have the attention span of rabbits, not that I wish to insult rabbits.
You don't loan friends money ,If you have it to spare you give it to them. that way you don't look for nothing back.
Lee123
A jackpot winner as interviewed oin one of the documentaires and he told of giving people a million dollars each- and every single person he gave a million dollars coming back asking for more.
I think when we're talking about hitting a jackpot it's a little different than loaning out $100 or so.
On the old television show "the Millionaire" that guy gave away a million dollars to different people and it ended up ruining their lives.
If there's anyone who wants to give me a million bucks, I'll take that chance! After all, if I'm going to be poor & miserable, I might as well be rich & miserable.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for this guy. He made a lot of mistakes and blamed the lottery for it all. There's a smart way and a dumb way of handling the winnings. This is just a classic case of how not to handle the winnings.
After reading this article, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36338-2005Jan25.html, it seemed that this man had become very arrogance after hitting the power jackpot. His problems were mostly consequenced from giving excessive allowances to his granddaughter, $5000 a day. Therefore she attracted peers that liked her money more than her life quality. He was the one to blame for her death by providing a massive resource to her drug habits, money.
This windfall can be considered as a punishment from a religious point of view. Building a big church for people to worship can be view as an act in defining God. No matter how small a church is; If God wants to stay there, don't REMOVE him. I don't say that I know God, but basically daily worshipers can think removal of church is an spritual attack.
He has defined nature law because in my belief if something happen to his life; the nature tries to tell him to change. Listen to it, and do something right. Oppositely, he has bragged to the news that he would stay the same.
Stay the same house - People keep knocking his door, and sending mails to him.
Stay the same phone number - People keep calling.
Stay in the same neighborhood - He is a Cash picking target.
Stay the same drunken attitude - Keep asking for trouble.
Jack Whittaker's CASH SPENDING I.Q. is extremely low. He DROPPED OUT too soon must be the cause.
This is his destiny, winning a big jackpot by buying $1 quick pick as RARELY, irregular player.
I think he should write a book about his life because he only has 10 more years to remain on earth, according to his words in the article above. It will be a good source for us to analyze, what we should not do in details to avoid a troubling life ater winning the lottery. But I don't think his book will become a bestseller.
I don't try to pick on him, but he should change his name to Jug Whiskey. it just suits him well. You can find more at http://www.kabalarians.com for more info.
Well we definitley can say winning a then record jackpot, hanging out in strip clubs and letting it be known that there's a quarter of a milion dollars cash in the trunk of your car is not a real good idea.
If this story does not convince people to remain anonymous after winning a jackpot, I don't know what will.
Are you the "Cash Only" of anonymity?
Believe me, I agree with you 100%.
Jack wasn't that kind of guy (he was a proud boastful man ) and there are many like him he was a good old boy who was an upstanding citizen. When he won the lottery he never dreamed that people would treat him differently than they did before the win. Something snapped after he won he went trough some really weird conversations with the elders of his church whatever happened after that is history now. Nevertheless he snapped an went on a wild trip. Shortly after his win it was said that his wife wouldn't even make him a cup of coffee in the morning. She shunned him the church elders shunned him and he looked elsewhere for an outlet. The road he traveled after that was of his choosing. He had every opportunity to change the way things were going and apparently didn't take any steps to fix his problem.
Some things that come to mind here, regarding 'trust':
If I won a million, or 300 million, it makes no difference as I am sure some folks would be asking me for $5,000-10,000, these are folks I would not trust with $5 let alone $5,000.
My friends are friends I can call, and they call me, it's not a one-way friendship. And by the same token, I EXPECT them to call me when they need help, be it moving, painting, or cutting down a tree, etc. If I don't have a two-way friendship, then those folks are not friends, they are what you call acquaintances.... I have hundreds of them. And I'm not complaining, I have plenty of 'true' friends.
Life can be as easy as you make it, or as difficult as you make it, it's your choice.
You could say that..... LOL
Speaking of "Cash Only", does he still post on Lottery Post. I haven't seen a message from him in over a month.
Nope- His last post was February 24th.
Jack Whittaker seems to, even after a 6 year weird and strange ride, gotten is life together. He doesn't seem like what has happened to him has beaten him.
Compare him to David Edwards, who only lives about 50 miles down the road in Kentucky, who isn't made of the same stuff and, when given the big bucks blew up like the space shuttle. He, according to the latest story, either is on his deathbed in a rural KY hospital or recouperating nearby. And broke.
Edwards turned his cash on himself. He and his wife basically went into hyperdrive and became what their destiny had laid out. Both had no common sense, no idea of how to handle money and major drug addictions.
Whittaker, on the other hand, went the more traditional route, knocking down liquor and chasing things in nudie bars. While Edwards seemed happy showing off his largese, Whittaker prefered to travel around town as if he had been elected emperor.
Both took direct hits; Edwards blew his wad and did drugs. Whittaker, had the horror of losing his grandaughter. Plus his wife.
Whittaker is still standing. Edwards, on his back. One is broke, the other glad he's not.
Some should write a book comparing these two country, rural America boys.
The smartest thing Whittaker said in the article was 'I know I can win the lottery, the other people don't think they can win'. Guess that says something about who his. Seems like a bit of snob to me.