No, no, no, noooooooo! Not another WWII fever dream. We understand Bill’s been sent on a top secret mission and Charlene’s scared, but do we all have to suffer? Yes, yes we do.
Meanwhile, Anthony gets the gang wrapped up in some Florida lottery scheming, so we’ll sidebar on some good (and bad) winner stories.
And then come back on Thursday for an “Extra Sugar” where we’re gonna shake things up and talk about one of our favorite current shows (which is incidentally all about the past) – The Crown. It’s the last season, y’all, so catch up and talk through it with us.
Some of our references:
Washington Post article about the Florida lottery rush in the fall of 1990
An article from Madison Trust on the biggest lottery winners of all time
A Business Insider article about lotto winners who lost it all and a USA Today article with more cheery tales of fun or sweet things previous winners have purchased (+ this list of inspirational lottery winner stories)
Jack Whittaker’s obituary, which details his complicated legacy as one of the biggest lottery winners of all time
If you want a blast from the past, “celebrate the moments of your life” like Charlene and *other* Bill with this very vintage commercial.
Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
Or listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music.
Transcript
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: Hey, Salina.
Salina: And hello, everyone, and welcome to Sweet Tea and TV.
Salina: Hey, y'all.
Salina: The place where every month we try and remember how it is that we did this the last time.
Nikki: We'll remember.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Actually, before we get started today, I had two things that I wanted to say.
Salina: Okay?
Salina: So I wanted to just.
Salina: I know this won't exactly sync up timeline wise, but screw it, because I just have to say, in the most loving and endearing way that I can possibly muster right now, rip Roslyn Carter.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: I didn't know where that was going.
Salina: You didn't know where I was going.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I just want to say, mean, she is from what is now Nikki's home state, what has always been my home state.
Salina: She is an amazing, incredible, wondrous woman who I.
Salina: In a time where we can't have a not flawed person anywhere, because no, people are not without flaws.
Nikki: Okay?
Salina: Somehow, except for you.
Salina: Somehow, you and Rosalind, somehow, she and Jimmy Carter were just two people that continue to stay out of the fray.
Salina: I don't care how you felt about Jimmy Carter as president.
Salina: I'm talking about as human beings, they're pretty.
Salina: Just mind blowing.
Salina: And to lose her off the face of the earth was a real loss, and we've lost a lot of giants.
Salina: Sandra Day O'Connor passed away.
Salina: Henry Kissinger died, which I told my husband, and he was like, henry Kissinger.
Nikki: Still alive, had the same.
Salina: I don't.
Salina: I'm not putting him in the same category.
Salina: I'm just saying it's like these really giant figures who kind of changed a lot of history or part of big historical changes have gone.
Salina: And it feels weird to sit in this chair, have a microphone, and not say something.
Nikki: Yeah, that's nice.
Salina: I also wanted to say two really specific things.
Salina: Anybody could go look up a million things that Roslyn Carter did, but there were things that her grandson, I think, said at her funeral and talked about her being a southern grandmother.
Salina: And for the purposes of this podcast, he said that she put mayonnaise in everything.
Salina: And the second thing he said was that every year, she would send all of the grandkids $20 on their birthday.
Salina: This was a first lady, and I love that anecdote so much.
Nikki: I ended up down a rabbit hole trying to figure out where in Plains, Georgia, or around Plains, Georgia.
Nikki: One where that is, I think I vaguely knew, but I wanted to look at it on a map.
Nikki: And then I wanted to know where they lived.
Nikki: Like, where does a former first lady and a former president, where do they live in Plains, Georgia.
Nikki: In the starter home that they built, that is protected by a fence, it seems like, but not the level of security I think I expected from a former president.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: And I read just a few things about the house they live in and descriptions of the house they live in.
Nikki: They've lived a very modest life, and they were very, I think, probably true to their generation, very frugal with things and very responsible with money.
Nikki: And that was the thing that stuck out to me, is they honestly just seemed like southern grandparents to me.
Nikki: They seemed like my personal experience of my grandparents, which is just very mind blowing because they lived in the White House.
Salina: It's just impressive.
Salina: They're two good people.
Salina: I just am sort of sadly, in this place where I'm like, they were so connected that it's hard to think that Jimmy will.
Nikki: Yeah, I thought about that, too.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Tough thing to survive.
Nikki: But they had a beautifully long marriage, a beautifully long and influential life.
Nikki: So I didn't feel.
Nikki: I hope this isn't inappropriate to say.
Nikki: I didn't feel sad about her passing.
Nikki: I felt like a level of peace.
Nikki: She had just very recently entered hospice, so I imagine there was a discomfort happening super quick.
Nikki: Right?
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I was happy for that.
Salina: I'm sorry.
Salina: I can't imagine that hospice is a fun time from that regard.
Salina: If that was to come to pass for me, I wouldn't want to elongate that experience.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So I am hopeful that there was a sense of peace to it.
Nikki: I think there's a bittersweetness to it that, like, you're saying, they represent almost a different chapter in time that we're moving away from.
Salina: And I think that's what was really going through my head as we had this.
Salina: Like, I don't know if those are the three, but we talk about sometimes these, and they're not celebrities, but deaths will sometimes happen in threes or in our conscious for some reason that seems to happen that way.
Salina: And just.
Salina: It does feel like it is the passing of the old guard in so many ways.
Salina: So, here we are, guys.
Salina: Get ready to take it on, see what we can do with it.
Salina: Anyway, so I think another thing I'm going to do is I'm gonna try and do a couple of her recipes.
Salina: So the national Archive had shared some on social media.
Salina: So she's got a strawberry cake that.
Salina: It doesn't even look like my taste.
Salina: I just want to do it.
Nikki: I love strawberry cake.
Salina: It's like, the things that are in it probably wouldn't be my choice, like, mayonnaise.
Salina: You could.
Salina: I guess you could use dukes.
Salina: But no, somehow it incorporates, like, strawberry jello, which wouldn't be a choice I would make, but I will do it for you, Rosalind.
Salina: And then I was going to do.
Nikki: That feels like such a 1960s southern woman recipe.
Salina: The other one is a cheese mellow.
Salina: Oh, lord, I'm going to do that one, too.
Salina: And mayonnaise is not the bind that I would do, but I'm going to do it.
Salina: And so maybe that's something, depending on how that goes, that we could drop in on social media so you all.
Nikki: Can see my efforts.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: To see how I do as a 70s housewife, not well.
Salina: Probably wouldn't have hung in there very well.
Salina: I don't know that the mad men style thing would have worked for me, but here we are.
Salina: And then I have a general housekeeping thing that I just want to say, just to let folks know who might tune in here, but don't follow us on social media.
Salina: That on our website, if you're still scrounging around for holiday gifts, we do have four gift guides up right now.
Salina: Well, and for forever.
Nikki: And we have some from last year, too.
Salina: I mean, the gifts just keep on giving.
Salina: So we have one specifically for designing women fans with different things that we track down for the designing women fan in your life.
Salina: We both, respectively, have our favorite.
Salina: These are a few of our favorite things from this year that you can check out for yourself and then also to buy someone or for yourself, I don't know.
Salina: And then the last one are southern businesses that we wanted to put a spotlight on that we've found and enjoyed this year or have found and enjoyed for many years.
Nikki: And in all seriousness, the new ones are easy to find because they're current, like recent on our website.
Nikki: But there is a little tab at the top if you just want to click gift guides and you can find last year's as well.
Nikki: No promises.
Nikki: All those gifts links are still current and still available.
Nikki: Sorry about that.
Salina: It's just outside of our control, but they're there.
Salina: So I just wanted to say that.
Salina: And then with that, you want to jump into this episode?
Salina: Yes.
Nikki: Just trying to think of a transition to what if you just took a nap now that you've kept the home fires burning?
Nikki: Salina?
Nikki: What if the designing women keep the home fires burning?
Nikki: So we are on season five, episode ten, keep the Home fires burning.
Nikki: While Bill is on a classified mission, Charlene befriends a man she met at a support group.
Nikki: Air date November 26, 1990 we're calling this one.
Nikki: Even Rosie the riveter had urges.
Nikki: It was written by D.
Nikki: Laduke and Mark Alton Brown and directed by David Trainor.
Nikki: So Delta Burke doesn't appear in this episode, which is most likely related to the off screen drama that had been brewing between her and the Thomasons for several months.
Nikki: I think we're about to enter a series of episodes where, in my opinion, that becomes really clear.
Nikki: So I think, Salina, you are going to talk about this in extra sugar next week, right?
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: So we'll talk a little bit more about that.
Nikki: So, but before we get there, let's talk about general reactions and stray observations to this episode.
Nikki: This week.
Nikki: What you got?
Salina: I didn't care for this one at all.
Salina: I just don't know any two ways around it.
Salina: When I saw Charlene lay down on that couch along with the cue of.
Nikki: A 40s song with her robe on.
Salina: I literally thought I was going to throw up.
Salina: All I could think was, dear Lord, are we about to do another World War II fever dream?
Salina: And then it happened to me and I don't understand completely why.
Nikki: So that was my first coming back.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I think I mentioned to you off air or off mic that I think we are about to enter a string of episodes I don't get overly excited about, I would say.
Nikki: Yeah, this was a tough watch.
Nikki: On that note, though, I thought there was a really valid sub point underpinning the whole episode that we don't really talk about the perspective of military husbands.
Nikki: And I imagine that was a particularly progressive stance to take back in the think we probably maybe think about it a little bit more now.
Nikki: But I thought that was a really interesting subplot.
Salina: I don't know that we do, honestly.
Salina: I still think it is.
Salina: I mean, more now, yes, but probably not nearly giving it as much credit as might be the case.
Salina: I say that with a full understanding that it's not like I'm hanging out with a bunch of military folks all the time.
Salina: So what I will say, because I think this really matches up with that thought, is that I can't say this for sure, but if I had to take a guess, I think they were trying to achieve a couple of things with this episode in addition to what you noted.
Salina: So acknowledging and respecting that we sent human beings overseas to fight, putting their lives on the line because we are literally smack dab in the middle of the Gulf war at this time in real life.
Salina: And then that meant worried family, friends and loved ones here at home who were going through, you know, I think also to some extent, balancing that with not romanticizing war, Allah, World War II.
Salina: And I see how Charlene and Bill were the right vehicle for that.
Salina: I just think the execution wasn't there.
Salina: And I'll save my specific thoughts there when we get around to a little category I like to call.
Salina: I didn't like that.
Nikki: Yeah, I hear you.
Nikki: I did cry, like, not a minor amount watching this episode.
Nikki: The first time I have such a soft spot for military stories come from kind of a military family.
Nikki: My father in law served in the military, so I have always had a soft spot for the military.
Nikki: My brother and sister were both in the navy.
Nikki: Thank you for your service.
Nikki: So all the military stuff gets me every time.
Nikki: Knowing the context to this one, which actually, I forgot to put in references.
Nikki: So I'm glad you just mentioned that.
Nikki: But the Gulf war is happening in the backdrop of this particular episode when it aired originally.
Nikki: So knowing all of those things, it's a very sensitive topic.
Nikki: And like you said, charlene and Bill were the ones to do it.
Nikki: I hate that they sort of fell back.
Nikki: It feels a little lazy to fall back on the fever dream thing because we've been there and done that.
Nikki: Switching gears a minor amount.
Nikki: But I want to talk about, again, something I'm struggling with, maybe this season.
Nikki: I know I struggled with it a bit in the first season with cold opens.
Nikki: The b plot is so disentangled from the main plot of the episode to a point where it's distracting.
Nikki: So this was a very emotional episode about the military experience, about this thing Charlene's dealing with.
Nikki: And in the backdrop, we've got the others playing the lottery.
Salina: Oh, yeah.
Salina: And I was like, what's the b plot?
Nikki: It's just a disconnect.
Nikki: I just feel like it's like whiplash to a sense.
Nikki: They're aiming maybe for comedic relief or something.
Nikki: But it missed the mark for me because it just feels so disconnected.
Nikki: I think part of the reason I'm bringing this up is because sometimes it's a little bit hard to remember.
Nikki: And I think we talked about this recently, what happened in what episode?
Nikki: Because it is so freaking, like, wait.
Nikki: Oh, this the one where Charlene is really missing Bill and really going through it.
Nikki: That's where they had that funny thing about the.
Nikki: Like, it's just so weird.
Nikki: I do not care for that.
Nikki: So it actually set me down a rabbit hole this last week about sitcom structure because I don't sometimes understand it.
Nikki: I feel like my recollection of b plots is that there's sort of a thread tying everything together.
Nikki: And I feel like I'm not seeing that as much in these next couple of episodes.
Nikki: And it could be because of what's going on with Suzanne in the backdrop.
Nikki: Maybe there were pieces tying it together that had to be dropped.
Nikki: Or maybe they're rewriting really quickly or something.
Nikki: But I really think that it's a misfire for me.
Nikki: And so with this episode, I liked the lottery subplot because that just was fun for me.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: But it was a real big mismatch with what was going on with Charlene.
Salina: Yeah, that's fair.
Salina: Stray observations.
Nikki: I had a couple of cut lines, actually.
Nikki: Sorry, just one cut line.
Nikki: So Charlene was saying nothing anyone can do can cheer her up.
Nikki: And she apologized for being a pitiful military wife.
Nikki: She gave some examples of things that happened during World War II, and this is something you just said where she sort of glamorizes that.
Nikki: So she says women bought war bonds and planted the victory gardens and even went without stockings and drew the seams with an eyebrow pencil.
Nikki: I don't do any of that.
Nikki: I just ramble around my big new house waiting for the mailman.
Nikki: I cry all the time.
Nikki: And I'm afraid for Bill.
Nikki: I'm mad at the government for sending him there.
Nikki: That's not very patriotic of me.
Nikki: So Mary Jo pipes in and says, I hate seeing you this depressed.
Nikki: Why don't you come to the house tonight?
Nikki: We'll pop popcorn, and you can use my ultrasonic foot massager.
Nikki: You like that?
Nikki: Yeah, but that doesn't take the place of a husband.
Nikki: Tell me about it.
Nikki: I appreciate y'all trying to cheer me up.
Nikki: So I feel like we talk a lot about how Charlene romanticizes World War II.
Nikki: I think you can watch the episode with that cut and still take away the fact that she's no longer going to romanticize it in that way.
Nikki: I think she actually says that at the end, but I thought this was kind of a nice parallel.
Salina: Yeah, I agree.
Salina: I will tell you that sometimes for everyone else, Nikki tracks our cut lines, but I always have the script up with me when I'm watching it because I think that sometimes it's helpful for that context.
Nikki: You want to make sure I don't miss anything.
Salina: That is absolutely not the case.
Salina: I don't track them like that.
Salina: But I will say, what really messes me up sometimes is I can remember the things, but I don't remember whether.
Nikki: Or not it was in the episode.
Salina: And that gets tough for me.
Salina: Similar to, like, what b plot was with what where am I?
Salina: And again, why is this happening to me?
Salina: Yeah, all those things.
Nikki: I also wanted to ask you quickly, danny boy.
Nikki: Who sang it better, Julia or Moira Rose from Schitt's Creek?
Salina: Gonna have to go with Moira Rose.
Salina: Oh, boy.
Nikki: What strays did you have?
Salina: When other bill, as we call him, and Charlene decided to get together with the kids to talk, other bill says they could play geography.
Salina: The kids are eleven and 13 months old.
Nikki: What is geography?
Salina: I don't know.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: But I know an eleven and 13 year old aren't good at it.
Nikki: Oh, was it innuendo?
Salina: Other bill?
Salina: So that was my first one.
Salina: I watched that one back and I was like, but what are they doing?
Salina: Okay.
Salina: My other thing is just that while I didn't love the fever dream, and I will continue to say that I'm sorry for any big fever dream fans out there, I would actually love to be the secretary of Snicker Doodles.
Nikki: Doesn't sound like a bad gig.
Salina: If the position opens up, I know the gal.
Salina: She's sitting right here.
Nikki: Is that your last stray?
Salina: It is.
Nikki: I have one more, and then I want to take us on a sidebar.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Is that okay?
Salina: Sounds wonderful.
Nikki: So, in September 1990, going back to this lottery subplot, there was actually a really huge lottery pot here in the US.
Nikki: At the time, the state run lottery jackpot was topping $100 million and growing really fast.
Nikki: There was hope that it would top the US record of 115,000,000, which 14 winners in the Pennsylvania lottery had shared the previous year.
Nikki: So there was sort of a currency to this plotline that there was this huge jackpot going on, and it was lottery fever.
Nikki: I think I linked to an article in the show notes about it.
Nikki: I mean, it was huge, and it was all in Florida.
Nikki: So it all tracks with this subplot.
Salina: Oh, interesting.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: But I'm going to take us on a sidebar real quick.
Nikki: It's a sidebar.
Nikki: Nikki.
Nikki: Sidebar.
Nikki: She's got a keyboard.
Nikki: Looking for a reward by digging deep in the obscure, taking us on a detour.
Nikki: What you got, nikki?
Nikki: Nikki?
Nikki: Sidebar.
Nikki: All right, so lottery fever was gripping sugar bakers.
Nikki: This episode, as I've talked about at length, in terms of thinking it was a weird pairing with this episode, doesn't mean I didn't like it.
Nikki: It's just a weird pairing with this episode.
Nikki: So I thought we'd Sidebar on the lottery itself and past lottery winners specifically, can we talk about some of the best and worst lottery winner stories?
Nikki: So I think most people are probably familiar with the lottery.
Nikki: Watching this episode, you, at a minimum, understand that you buy a ticket, you could win big money.
Nikki: It's essentially a form of gambling, legal gambling, in which numbers are drawn to award a prize, which is usually money.
Nikki: Lotteries have been recorded all the way back to, like, 200 bc.
Nikki: Ancient China.
Nikki: It's wild, right?
Nikki: The funds back then were used to raise or used to finance major government projects.
Nikki: Today, in many countries, lotteries are organized and regulated by the government, and profits are usually earmarked for major government initiatives.
Nikki: Like Mary Jo said in this episode, by saying the money was for good.
Nikki: In the US, lotteries happen at a state level.
Nikki: 45 states and three territories have them.
Nikki: And then there's this nearly national super lottery of sorts called the Powerball.
Nikki: It's not, like, run by the federal government or anything.
Nikki: It's just sort of a self developed consortium of state lotteries that come together to pool their money.
Nikki: So it makes the prizes bigger.
Nikki: That's how you end up with these massive jackpots.
Nikki: So, at the time of this episode, actually, Georgia didn't have a lottery or participate in the Powerball.
Nikki: That didn't happen until 1992, which is why they were outsourcing these tickets to Florida.
Nikki: But the person who started the Florida lottery, I found out, actually helped start the Georgia Lottery just a couple of years after this episode aired.
Nikki: Just random, like, they're playing the lottery in Florida in the episode, because that's what people in Georgia did at the time.
Nikki: Then the person that started the Florida lottery started the Georgia one a couple of years later, and she ran it for ten years.
Nikki: Okay, so, in Georgia, the lottery takes in over $1 billion every year.
Nikki: Ton of money.
Nikki: By law, half of the money has to go to prizes.
Nikki: One third goes to education, and then the remainder goes to just operating and marketing the lottery.
Nikki: So the education money here in Georgia funds the Hope scholarship, which other states have modeled, including the South Carolina Education lottery.
Nikki: My fun fact number two, including that lady from the Florida lottery, is that I went to college because of the Hope scholarship.
Nikki: It's like, super low barrier in terms of.
Nikki: So, like, you don't have to have a substantial amount of collegiate or financial literacy to figure it out.
Nikki: You just sort of apply to college.
Nikki: If you get in and you're eligible, you keep it.
Nikki: They just keep taking care of everything for you.
Nikki: So I don't want to go on a sidebar, necessarily about the hope scholarship, except to say, I think it made college possible for a lot of kids for whom it wouldn't be possible.
Nikki: I am one of those, and I'm very grateful to everyone who plays the lottery.
Salina: Thank you.
Salina: Same.
Salina: I agree.
Nikki: I'm very cheap.
Nikki: I do not play the lottery, but other people do, which is nice.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So, a quick Google search told me the biggest jackpot of all time in the US was 2.4 billion.
Nikki: That was a powerball win on November 7, 2022, in California.
Nikki: So Edwin Castro was the one in 292.2 million.
Nikki: One in 292,000,000.
Nikki: Those were his ods.
Nikki: He was the winner.
Nikki: He took a lump sum of 900 ish million.
Nikki: So he's not technically a billionaire.
Nikki: According to a separate article I found, since his big win, he has purchased two multimillion dollar homes in California, as well as a vintage vehicle pre lotto.
Nikki: He was in a one bedroom.
Nikki: He's now in a 14,000 square foot mansion with an infinity pool, five bedrooms, and seven bathrooms.
Salina: Wait, is it just him?
Salina: I don't remember.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I don't remember.
Nikki: No, I think there's a way to know.
Nikki: I feel like I remember he has a family, but I could be wrong.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Well, good for him.
Nikki: Yeah, of course.
Nikki: Though, unfortunately, car, though?
Nikki: Just the one that they mentioned, he probably has a fleet.
Nikki: Of course, not every lottery winner is winning hundreds of thousands of dollars, but for many who play the lottery, even a couple million is life changing money.
Nikki: And unfortunately, it doesn't seem to come with built in financial literacy, because a lot of people go really wild.
Nikki: In fact, the cliche of the lottery tends to be that people blow through the money really quickly and end up worse off than they were at the start.
Nikki: It is that cliche for a reason.
Nikki: There are a lot of stories along these lines, but there are also some positive stories.
Nikki: So, because I'm a bad news, good news kind of gal, meaning I like to end on the good news.
Nikki: I'm going to share, really briefly, one really tragic lottery related story.
Nikki: Then I'll share a handful of more positive stories.
Nikki: But I don't want anyone to walk away from the segment thinking there's more good than bad.
Nikki: I actually had trouble finding positive stories.
Nikki: There's a reason they say money is the root of all evil.
Nikki: Generally speaking, having too much money that you came by freely really does not seem to be a good thing.
Salina: No, but I'd like to give it my best.
Nikki: I'd give it a try.
Nikki: No.
Nikki: We have a five step plan, one step of which is that I may just disappear from this podcast and you people would never see me again.
Nikki: Kyle does play the lottery when it gets really big.
Salina: Yes, I have one of those as well.
Nikki: So the first one I wanted to talk about, like I said, is sad, but it started out really magical, like a dream come true.
Nikki: So, Christmas Eve 2002, Jack Whitaker, a West Virginia businessman who already enjoyed a net worth of $17 million, popped by a local gas station to fuel up his car and grab a breakfast sandwich.
Nikki: An irregular lottery player, given how high the jackpot was, he bought $100 worth of tickets.
Nikki: The next day on Christmas, Santa gave him the biggest gift.
Nikki: When the winning numbers were drawn, he learned that he had won $314.9 million in the powerball.
Salina: Wait, hold on.
Salina: You said this guy is already a millionaire?
Nikki: He was a 17 millionaire, in fact.
Salina: 17 millionaire.
Salina: Okay, so specific.
Nikki: At the time, it was the largest jackpot ever won by a single ticket.
Nikki: He chose the cash option, which gave him about $100 million.
Salina: God.
Salina: Jesus.
Nikki: After his win, he experienced a lot of personal tragedy.
Nikki: It seems like it all started out well intentioned.
Nikki: He pledged 10% of his winnings to christian charities.
Nikki: He donated 14 million to start a self named nonprofit organization that provided food and clothing to low income families in West Virginia.
Nikki: For the deli manager who served him his breakfast biscuit at that gas station where he bought it.
Nikki: The day he bought the ticket, he bought a $123,000 house and a new jeep grand Cherokee.
Nikki: He also gave her a check for $44,000.
Nikki: And then he bought himself a Lamborghini.
Nikki: And he drove through his neighborhood throwing cash out the window.
Salina: Oh, that's a choice.
Nikki: After that, it all went downhill.
Nikki: At some point shortly after winning the lottery, his wife left him.
Nikki: They had been together since, like, middle school.
Salina: Was he driving around throwing cash at her?
Nikki: It probably had more to do with the sheer amount of time he was spending at the strip club, which seemed like a lot.
Nikki: He was robbed there not once.
Nikki: Maybe not even just twice.
Nikki: After a year after winning, he was robbed of $500,000.
Nikki: I repeat, half a million dollars was stolen from his car in the parking lot.
Salina: I mean.
Salina: Okay, I'll have to keep processing.
Salina: Go on.
Nikki: I want to give you some specifics as you process.
Nikki: So, the robbers stole a suitcase that he kept in his car that held this half a million dollars.
Nikki: When he was asked why he walked around with that much money, guess what he said.
Salina: Probably something asinine.
Nikki: Because I can.
Salina: Oh, lord.
Nikki: Well, later, at that same club.
Nikki: So he's robbed multiple times at that same club.
Nikki: Two people were charged with a plot to drug and rob him.
Nikki: Wouldn't you just stop going?
Salina: You just verbalized exactly what was going through my head.
Salina: Like, how many times does one need to be robbed at one location to know that?
Salina: Maybe I will go to another location.
Salina: Like, stuff happens.
Salina: And obviously once, maybe you hit that second time and you're like, okay, I'm being targeted either emotionally, spiritually, or literally.
Salina: They're like, there is a douchebag in here, and we're going to take him for everything he's worth, and then you just move on.
Nikki: Well, he didn't move on because a year later, $200,000 was stolen from his car, but that was recovered later.
Nikki: But then there was a string of deaths.
Nikki: So in 2004, his granddaughter's boyfriend was found dead of a drug overdose on their property.
Nikki: Just a few months later, in December, his granddaughter, the one whose boyfriend had been found dead, was found dead on the property of a male friend wrapped in a plastic tarp.
Nikki: They found drugs in her system, but the cause of death was labeled as undetermined, and it remained.
Nikki: I want to say this real quick in case I forgot to come back to it later.
Nikki: It remained, I think, unsolved, for the rest of it remained unsolved.
Salina: Oh, goodness.
Nikki: He was sued by Caesar's Atlantic City for writing checks that bounced.
Nikki: His daughter died in 2009, and then finally in 2016, his house burned down.
Nikki: He stated that the home wasn't insured in an interview in 2007.
Nikki: So he won the lottery, I think I said in 2002, like, the early two thousand s.
Nikki: In an interview just a few years later, he said, quote, I'm only going to be remembered as the lunatic who won the lottery.
Nikki: I'm not proud of that.
Nikki: I want to be remembered as someone who helped a lot of people.
Nikki: He died in 2020 at the age of 72.
Nikki: It's not clear to me what happened to what was left of his fortune.
Nikki: He said on multiple occasions that everything he'd built, even pre lottery, he'd built everything for his granddaughter, and she was the one who died shortly after he won the lottery.
Nikki: He never shied away from saying he'd have given all of the winnings back if he could just have his granddaughter again.
Salina: Jeez, sorry I called you a douchebag.
Nikki: Well, I don't know.
Nikki: It doesn't change it, but multiple things can be true.
Salina: That's true.
Nikki: I think his story as a lottery winner was really only singular in terms of the amount he won, a really historic amount of money.
Nikki: He just genuinely had a staggering amount.
Nikki: But there were a not insignificant number of stories of people who won, like, a couple million or several million, but spent like they had his level of wealth and blew through it all in the blink of an eye.
Salina: I don't think if I could give a little piece of advice that I feel like will never be heard, is that our educational system could really benefit just the general population by teaching us a little bit more about budgeting and how much money is actually worth, because I think there is a really big disconnect there, and I think people, we're not doing our best.
Nikki: I won't belabor that, except to agree and say, though, jack must have had some level of financial literacy.
Salina: 17, millionaire.
Salina: I don't know if you knew that or not.
Nikki: He was, he also won such a staggering amount of money, it was unreal.
Nikki: And what do you do with that?
Salina: Yeah, what do you do with that?
Salina: Not so much for him, but these one in two millionaires.
Salina: Exactly.
Salina: For sure, they're out of their league.
Nikki: They're out of their league.
Nikki: They don't know what to do with it.
Nikki: I think there are some demographic trends as well that this is.
Nikki: I mean, again, a million dollars for some people is, in their eyes, it's the same amount that Jack, it might as well be the same amount of money because it's unfathomable.
Nikki: What does a million dollars even look like?
Nikki: A million dollars?
Salina: 40%.
Nikki: It doesn't go that far if you lose a bunch in taxes, and it doesn't go that far.
Nikki: Anywho, there are people, though, Salina, that turn the lottery into a positive thing.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Let's end this on a positive note.
Nikki: For instance, John and Linda cutie, their office pool.
Nikki: Isn't that cute?
Nikki: Their office pool won one of mega million's biggest jackpots.
Nikki: When they won their $19 million share, they knew they wanted to honor their parents by giving back to the community, so they renovated a local park.
Nikki: They replaced an older waiting pool with a modern spray park.
Nikki: They donated all the new equipment and paid to have it installed.
Nikki: They bought themselves a beautiful home and retired from their jobs.
Nikki: But first, they did something really nice for their community.
Nikki: Les Robbins used his $111,000,000 Powerball jackpot to create a camp for kids.
Nikki: At the time he won, he had been working as a high school teacher, and he thought about how kids today don't enjoy life the same way he did as a kid.
Nikki: They don't go to camps.
Nikki: They don't get outside to play.
Nikki: So he founded Camp Winnegator on 226 acres, acres of land that he bought with lottery money.
Nikki: He operated it for over a decade.
Nikki: The camp offered a low cost place for kids to go in the summer to do all those outdoorsy things he worried they were missing out on.
Nikki: Finally, I wanted to tell you about Paul and Sue Rosenau, who won $181,000,000 from a Powerball drawing in 2008.
Nikki: Their granddaughter Michaela had passed away just five years to the day before they bought their winning ticket.
Nikki: As soon as they won, they knew they had to figure out what was going on with crab disease, which is the rare condition that killed their newborn grandbaby.
Nikki: So they established the legacy of angels to increase awareness of the disease and fund research they serve on the foundation's board.
Nikki: I did a really cursory glance and found press releases as recent as this year from the organization, so they are very much still doing good work.
Salina: That's nice.
Salina: I'm a little caught off guard by crab disease.
Salina: Yeah, I'll have to look into that later.
Nikki: I don't have any specifics to offer you right now.
Salina: This is probably not the positive part of the story, but that's really nice.
Nikki: So in general, the lottery kind of makes me sad, but I did like reading those positive stories.
Nikki: So what else did you like about this episode, Salina?
Salina: Well, I did have one thing that was actually lottery related, so I think I'll start there because that feels like a nice bow on your sidebar.
Salina: But Julia's point about how Americans react to taxes versus the lottery was a really good one.
Salina: She says, doesn't it strike any of you as odd that people will foam at the mouth at the merest suggestion of a tax increase, but they will crawl buck naked and blindfolded across a minefield for a chance to throw their money down a government sanctioned rat hole?
Salina: Yes, Julia, it is od, and it is happening all the time.
Salina: But also, sometimes people are not good stewards with our money.
Salina: So I'm just going to balance that out with that point, right?
Nikki: On that note, I also liked line by Mary Jo.
Nikki: I think right there in that same time frame of the episode, she says, let's face it, the economy's gone sour.
Nikki: Dynasty's off the air.
Nikki: Mr.
Nikki: Read my lips has sold us all down the river.
Nikki: Lotteries are the only thing left to get excited about .1 I may come back to this later, Mr.
Nikki: Reed.
Nikki: My lips was President Bush, and he raised taxes after telling people he wouldn't.
Nikki: So that, I think, ties with Julia's comment.
Nikki: My version of that quote, though, would be the great british baking show and late night Amazon purchases are the only things left to get excited about.
Nikki: You take that away from me, and.
Salina: I will fall apart.
Salina: Well, we'll just keep them coming.
Salina: I don't think you have to worry about either one of those going away, but I say that.
Salina: But then 2020, man, and just don't ever think you're.
Nikki: I take nothing for granted.
Salina: Right.
Salina: So I'll say I liked the idea of this one and what I can only assume they were trying to do, which I've already mentioned those things, so I won't do that again.
Salina: But one additional thing I liked under this umbrella was the reminder that people back home have to take care of themselves, too, in a military situation where a spouse goes off, because being the one, not just a spouse, any family member, friend, whatever.
Salina: Because being the one left behind is also a hard job.
Salina: And I think that's what Charlene shows us through this.
Salina: And spouses or whoever the person know, they need help, they need support, and they need credit for keeping the home fires burning.
Salina: So I thought that was the ode is nice.
Salina: And that's what I keep coming back to with this one.
Salina: I like what they were trying to, um.
Salina: And then also just my last, like, is that I want to shout out Jean Smart's performance in the non dream sequences because I thought they were really good.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I think one of the sacrifices that Charlene had to make in this episode was having Suzanne babysit for her, which I think, under normal circumstances, she would not have done.
Nikki: So I really liked everything that Mary Jo described about that babysitting experience.
Nikki: Suzanne decided to do all the things that she did with her pig.
Nikki: They drove her on the loop with the top down.
Nikki: She took her to Dairy Queen, where she wet her pants and spit her buster bar on the upholstery.
Nikki: That's when she called me.
Nikki: Then she suggested that you sell Olivia to an infertile couple and get a pig.
Nikki: I really liked that line.
Salina: Well, the writers know Suzanne.
Salina: She is a very well drawn character, whether she's with us or not.
Nikki: It's true.
Salina: Things you didn't like.
Nikki: I think it's just the fever dream concept.
Nikki: We've talked about it.
Nikki: It didn't do it for me.
Nikki: I agree with you.
Nikki: I liked the concept of the episode.
Nikki: I think the execution left a little to be desired, and I don't have to nitpick beyond that.
Salina: And here comes Salina picking.
Salina: I'm like, well, I wrote it down.
Nikki: Pick them.
Salina: Now you have to hear it.
Salina: So it doesn't always matter with this show that it's 30 plus years old.
Salina: I mean, that's one thing that we talk about sometimes.
Salina: We sit right here and talk about how we can't believe how much an episode will resonate with us, even though so much time has passed.
Salina: This is not one of those times.
Salina: I think the country is, frankly, too different now for it to land.
Salina: How it might have then.
Salina: I'm not saying that the military aspect doesn't matter.
Salina: That also matters to me.
Salina: Well, both of my grandfathers served, my stepfather served.
Salina: I think there's definitely and other members of my family, although I don't know I would consider myself coming from a military family.
Salina: But just I think the general knowledge that there's someone out there fighting on behalf of you is something that I think we would all do well to keep in mind and not use them as pawns in a larger scheme.
Salina: Which is why I think sometimes I get annoyed with the politics around it because we shouldn't use people like that.
Salina: But this is the world and we do that anyways.
Salina: I'm digressing to say that in 2023, we're not quite in the same moment as we were in 1990.
Salina: We're having moments, lots of moments, and everything is a constant dumpster fire.
Salina: But I just don't think that it can play on the same emotions that it might have been able to play on at that time.
Salina: I do think we were having an incredibly patriotic moment, especially depending on where you were in the country.
Salina: And I don't know how to say this without the sounding weird, but the Gulf war went well for us.
Salina: And so I think it was like this very heady time as well.
Salina: When I removed that aspect.
Salina: And I'm going to put on my 1990 hat, I will say that I'm still not sure that this episode works.
Salina: Even though Gene smart is so good, the emotions didn't feel earned to me because the episode wasn't given any room to breathe.
Salina: I think the pacing was off.
Salina: And while I was still trying to digest that Bill had been sent on a top secret mission, Charlene is suddenly moving back to poplar buff buff bluff because she's an unpatriotic traitor and an adulteress in her heart.
Salina: What?
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: This all happens before minute ten.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I just want to point out that a few episodes back, we took that much time for Mary Jo to decide to take up jogging.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: So somehow, in spite of all of this and feeling rushed up to this point, it then feels like.
Salina: And I think this is what you were getting at already, Nikki.
Salina: But just to expand on, like, they ran out of storyline and they decided to fix it by blowing the dust off of Julia's flag dress and Mary Jo's cigarette girl outfit from season two.
Salina: So I don't know how we had both too many and not enough blankets, but it happened.
Nikki: It happened.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: That's where we are.
Salina: I'm sure we have an amazing rating for this one.
Salina: What's yours, Nikki?
Salina: Five out of five.
Nikki: Oh, I gave it a 2.5 out of five.
Nikki: So, like we said, it was not my favorite.
Nikki: The fever dreams have never really done it for me.
Nikki: They just feel weird.
Nikki: It's just weird.
Nikki: It's surreal.
Nikki: I don't really care for surrealism.
Nikki: It's self aware in kind of a funny way.
Nikki: Like, they nod to this, but I don't care for it.
Nikki: I liked what you said.
Nikki: I hadn't really processed how quickly certain things.
Nikki: When she said she was going to move back to Poplar Bluff, I was like, what just happened?
Salina: Right.
Nikki: This is so dramatic.
Nikki: I didn't process how quickly that happened, and that's probably why I had that reaction.
Nikki: But it helps me double down on my not so great score, because this episode wasn't it for me.
Salina: No.
Salina: So I give it a two out of five cigarete girl outfits I never needed to see again, and I won't rehash why.
Salina: So we can move on to 90s things, if that's okay with you.
Nikki: That's fine.
Nikki: So Charlene sent Bill tapes.
Nikki: That feels very 90s.
Nikki: Wiring money and receiving telegrams by a western union, which is how they were handling the lottery business.
Nikki: We got another Tammy Faye Baker reference.
Nikki: We got an Oprah reference, and it included reference to her weight, where Charlene said, like, I think she's more in tune with people now that she's gained some of the weight back or something.
Salina: Right.
Salina: Which just that obsession with Oprah's weight.
Nikki: Is very of that time.
Nikki: And then Cafe Vienna, I just wanted to mention quickly, this is what Charlene said, that she and other Bill drank while watching the kids play that night at her house.
Nikki: She said they got close to celebrating the moments of their lives.
Nikki: So Cafe Vienna is an instant coffee drink made by instant Foods International coffee.
Nikki: The line of coffee now is branded as Maxwell House.
Nikki: They rebranded in 2010.
Nikki: The product line, including Cafe Vienna, was first launched in the 70s.
Nikki: Incidentally, Maxwell House is a southern business.
Nikki: They are named after a house in Nashville, since that's where the coffee was first served.
Nikki: Like a historic home.
Nikki: Oh, I didn't know that.
Nikki: Anyway, the slogan of Cafe Vienna was to, quote, celebrate the moments of your life.
Nikki: So that's why Charlene said, they came very close to celebrating the moments of their lives.
Nikki: And I linked to a really vintage commercial in the show notes, if you want to tiptoe down memory lane.
Salina: Did it make you so happy?
Nikki: It made me so happy.
Nikki: It's a very funny, very 80s commercial.
Nikki: I think the one I linked to is two women sitting on a porch sharing coffee before the whole family gets up.
Nikki: But they're not going to share with the men because it's just too good.
Salina: I do feel like I have an incredible nostalgia for 80s commercials.
Salina: And I think it's because in early ninety s and it's because we grew up in the time of taping things.
Salina: And so a lot of the little cartoon specials I had around Christmas and things like that featured a lot of that time period commercial.
Salina: And so it takes me back to being like a little kid.
Nikki: An instant coffee takes me back because I don't think it was Cafe Vienna, I think it was international house or something.
Nikki: But my stepdad used to use one of those instant coffees and he used to put the scoop in and I would sit there and watch it slowly dissolve.
Nikki: It was like a mountain going down into the water.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: I loved it.
Nikki: So when she said that, I was like, oh God, it sent me down.
Nikki: This whole like looking at pictures and remembering that.
Salina: That's nice.
Nikki: That's all I had.
Salina: Well, to say that in all fairness to this category and this show, there are just things that circle like that that just do kind of make you, I don't know, misty for another time.
Salina: It happens, guys.
Salina: It happens as you get older.
Salina: I don't know.
Nikki: It's just part and parcel happening more and more recently.
Salina: It's so good being old.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: So for me, I think you have either touched on them through your sidebar talking about how the lottery has evolved to your point, this is like a time capsule, really, of where the lottery was in 1990, so that's already been covered.
Salina: Or Mary Joe's string of 90s references, including Mr.
Salina: Read my lips and all these things.
Salina: This one is a big timestamp I think will be my overarching thought with this one, the Gulf War.
Salina: I'm not going to sit here and give you dates, but it was short and there was a lot of people who came together at that time.
Salina: And I do think that feels very different than a lot of the conflicts that we faced in more recent years.
Salina: And then on a softer note, other Bill and Charlene showing pictures of their kids that they kept in their wallets, like that just feels very of a time and then waking up from someone leaving a message on your answering machine because you didn't make it to your landline with a cord.
Salina: All very 1990 as well.
Salina: Southern things.
Nikki: No, mine was just crawl buck naked.
Salina: And blindfolded across a minefield.
Salina: Anytime you're buck naked, you're in the south.
Nikki: Hopefully not.
Nikki: Actually.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: The way it is doesn't mean you're b*** naked in public, but it could.
Nikki: Mean that if you're in Florida.
Salina: Florida's a weird place.
Salina: Okay?
Salina: Anybody's going to tell you there are.
Nikki: No rules in Florida.
Salina: There are zero rules.
Salina: That's why outbacks from there.
Salina: No rules.
Nikki: I work there.
Salina: Yeah, I work there.
Salina: What is it?
Salina: That's because beautiful beaches.
Nikki: Beautiful beaches in Florida.
Salina: It's true.
Salina: References we need to talk about.
Nikki: I don't know that we need to talk about it.
Salina: Well, I think we just said references we want to talk about, or we're going to talk about might need to be the name of this category.
Nikki: I was just going to mention Mrs.
Nikki: Miniver, because when Julia suggests Charlene go down to the base and find other spouses in a support group or something, Charlene says they could darn socks together or whatever and references this movie.
Nikki: According to Wikipedia, it was a 1942 american romantic war drama.
Nikki: Yeah, it won six Academy awards and was the highest grossing film of that year.
Salina: Because it's a british family struggling.
Salina: I think I kind of want to go watch it.
Salina: I think it might have my interest.
Salina: I struggle a little bit with war movies, to be honest.
Salina: They're just not usually my cup of tea, especially a lot of war scenes, because most of the time I'm closing my eyes because I'm a big baby, so I miss it.
Salina: But I feel like if it's focusing on the family piece of it, I might enjoy that a little bit.
Nikki: I could do it.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So that was my thought when I heard that we also get.
Salina: It's just a bunch of string of references that have to do with World War II movie era actors or actors portraying people in those movies.
Salina: So there you go.
Salina: It's a thing that happened.
Salina: And then I will just say that the phrase keep the home fires burning, you kind of pick up on it in context clues, but that's not, like, a big phrase in my house growing up.
Salina: So if you don't know, it means to maintain one's home, especially while one's spouse or other housemates are away.
Salina: I will tell you, because for me, the context of this episode, I thought it meant that you stayed loyal to your spouse while they were away.
Salina: Keep the home fires to yourself.
Salina: It's kind of the way I was reading that.
Salina: So it was helpful for me to look up that meaning.
Salina: And I was, okay, okay, that makes more sense.
Salina: But because there was sort of this possible flirtation going on, I thought it was like a dear John sort of associated.
Nikki: I mean, I don't think I use it all the time, but I've definitely used the term before.
Nikki: I say I'll hold down the fort.
Nikki: I'll hold down the fort that 1.
Salina: May feel, but for me there's like the fire aspect makes it sound more.
Nikki: I see what you think.
Salina: Yeah, a little bit sexier.
Salina: It's not is what I'm trying to say.
Salina: That was it for me.
Nikki: Okay, so next episode, season five, episode eleven, my daughter, myself, we'd love everyone to follow along with us and engage Instagram and Facebook at Sweet teantv TikTok, at sweet ttv pod.
Nikki: We're on YouTube.
Nikki: If you search sweet tea tv or at sweettv 7371.
Nikki: Our email address is sweettvpod@gmail.com.
Nikki: And our website is ww dot sweettv.com.
Nikki: There are several ways you can support the show.
Nikki: You can tell your family and friends about us.
Nikki: You can rate and review the podcast wherever you listen.
Nikki: And then there's some additional ways from our website on the support us page and then come back Thursday of this week, we're going to have an extra special, extra sugar.
Nikki: A little bit off plan.
Nikki: Salina.
Nikki: This is a little bit, what's the word?
Nikki: Spontaneous for us.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: We only planned it a week and a half or two weeks ago.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: But it did require some maneuvering on our part.
Nikki: Real effort.
Nikki: So we're going to talk about.
Salina: You want to tell?
Salina: I can tell the people.
Salina: Sure.
Salina: So we're going to talk about the crown, the Netflix tv series that Nikki and I have both been tuning into since 2016.
Salina: Well, I have been tuning into.
Nikki: Apparently I learned I'm an on and off watcher, which we'll talk about at some point.
Salina: Oh, good.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Well, I'm a huge fan, Nikki.
Nikki: I'm a big fan.
Nikki: I'm just an on and off watcher.
Nikki: It's a lot of commitment.
Salina: It's almost like you had kids around this point.
Salina: No.
Salina: So the point is they are airing their final season.
Salina: I think we were excited.
Salina: We wanted to be able to chat about it.
Salina: And I think there might be a little crossover with people who like designing women and who like something like the crown.
Salina: And we're hoping maybe that y'all want to chat about it with us in these final seasons, so we'll do it in two different episodes, and we'll talk more about that in the next episode.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So come back Thursday for that.
Salina: Shut up, Salina.
Nikki: Nope, I'm trying to figure out how to transition out.
Nikki: Thanks for.
Salina: Oh, I'm like, yeah.
Salina: Oh, what's she going to come up with?
Salina: All right.
Salina: Me.
Salina: All right, well, we'll see you around the bin.
Salina: Bye.