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Beach House Bingo

A woman I know — a financial guru by trade — says that if you want prosperity to come your way, you should repeat the mantra “People love to give me money”. If you say it over and over again, she suggests, eventually the universe hears and responds accordingly. I tried this a couple of times, and quickly became self-conscious. Even thinking the phrase made me feel slightly slimy; I quickly switched the mantra over to “Peace on Earth, Peace on Earth” to assuage my guilty feelings. The weird thing is, the money chant seemed to work. The first time I tried it, an unexpected check came in the mail — not a big check, but a check, nonetheless. The second time I tried it, I looked in the paper and found out I had been awarded a million dollars.

Before you start chanting the mantra, yourself, I should give you some background.

In 2000, I saw an article in the Los Angeles Times about an essay contest. The prize was a house in Manhattan Beach, with ocean views from two balconies. Ben Waldrep had put together the contest after his wife died; he pledged that 10% of the entry fees would be given to the Wellness Community, a non-profit group that had helped his wife throughout her illness. It seemed legitimate and sincere — I had seen similar essay contests where the prizes were ownership of a bed and breakfast, a farm, a bookstore, and thought it was a fun way for a person to pass along their property. I figured I had a chance — I had won several writing awards, even some big ones, and had just sold my first book. The prize appealed to me because it seemed like a great way to bring my parents out to California; at the time, they were both living in Chicago. My father, who was eighty-one that year, was still working full time; my mother, twenty years his junior, was ready for warmer climes. My parents had been separated for several years at that point, but they were still close friends. Maybe some little-kid part of me thought that if I won a house for them, it would bring them back together.

My mom agreed to pay the $195 entry fee, which was too steep for my budget. Yes, $195 is a lot of money to pay for a contest entry, but if you think of it as a down payment for a house, it doesn’t seem so bad.
Every entry had to begin with the sentence “I’ve always dreamed of living in a beautiful beach community like Manhattan Beach, California.” I would never in a million years begin an essay with that clunker of a sentence, but I tried to make it work. I waxed eloquent about how I grew up across the street from Lake Michigan, about how that endless expanse of water gave me a sense of limitlessness, of boundless creative possibility, as a child. I wrote about how I wanted to give my parents the view of the ocean so they could experience that same sense of possibility in their golden years. I wrote from the heart (although I admit to trying to pull some heart strings in the process). I packed up the essay with the check from my mom, kissed the envelope (as I always do before I send out my work), and plopped it in the mailbox.

Some time later, I received an acknowledgement of my entry, and a code number so I could check out my final score online. The entries were going to be ranked by four impartial judges — two teachers and two school administrators. I waited for the early 2001 deadline. I wasn’t expecting to win, but I was sure I would at least be in the running. I doubted too many other capital W Writers had decided to enter the contest. After the scoring was made public, though, I was humbled to discover that I was ranked squarely in the middle of the pack. No one had been swayed by my rhapsodies; my writerliness hadn’t won me any points. The winning entry seemed utterly pedestrian and a little sloppy to me — there were no gorgeous metaphors, no sentences that sang. I wondered if the judges had pulled the entry out of a hat, but that was probably just sour grapes. I apologized to my mom for not returning on her investment and promptly forgot about the whole thing.

But Don Coulson didn’t, I later found out. Coulson, a seventy-two-year-old from Temecula, felt cheated when he read the winning entry. He wasn’t expecting to win the prize; what he really wanted was to read the winning entry and see how his work stacked against it. The winning entry was, as he called it, “shoddy, a mess”, and didn’t give him any clues into the value of his own work. Coulson, who writes primarily for his own enjoyment, has published several letters to the editor on the topics of, as he told me by phone, “religion, politics, general nonsense.” Vogue printed his heavily researched letter about Pat Robertson’s involvement in a diamond mine in Zaire a few years ago. When he found out that the winner, David McNair, never claimed his prize, and Waldrep had kept possession of the house, Coulson decided to investigate. This led to a four-year legal journey, which included some physical journeying along the way.

Coulson flew all the way up to Shearwater, British Columbia, to meet McNair. He had to take several puddle jumper flights and a ferry to get to the island. He tracked McNair down at his hardware store, and posed as a Hollywood location scout so he could take some pictures. He thought he might be able to prove that Waldrep and McNair were related through resemblance. Later, he confronted McNair at a bar; McNair refused to answer any questions. He told Coulson “You came a hell of a long way for nothing.” Coulson kept searching. He gained access to the judges’ scoring sheets; a documents examiner he enlisted determined the scores for the winning essay had been altered. He also learned that Waldrep’s daughter was responsible for tallying the score sheets as they were received from the judges. Coulson filed a class action civil lawsuit against Waldrep in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging the contest was fixed.

On February 7, 2005 a jury determined that Waldrep had committed fraud. Then came the strange twist that temporarily made me a million dollar baby: the jury inadvertently awarded the 1,812 contest entrants $1 million each. A judgment of more than $1.8 billion total! Coulson, who was in the courtroom, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It turned out the jurors had meant to say that the entrants should split $1 million — the amount Waldrep ended up selling his house for — among us (which would amount to a little over $500 per person). By the time the jurors realized their error, they had already been dismissed. Nothing could be done about it. Waldrep’s lawyer has vowed to have the judgment overturned and may seek a new trial. After it all pans out, I’ll probably be lucky if I can pay my mom back for the entry fee. If, for some crazy reason, I do end up with a big wad of settlement cash, I’ve promised to split it with her.

My parents have both since moved to California—my mom three years ago, my dad three months ago (after finally retiring at the age of eighty-five.) They are not living together, but their houses are three miles apart within the same retirement community, and they see each other often; they can’t spot the water through their windows, but sometimes, if the wind is right, they can smell the sea. My dad — who doesn’t seem to understand the definition of retirement — is currently applying for jobs. He is worried about living on Social Security; life in California is much more expensive than he had anticipated. Maybe I’ll tell him about the “People love to give me money” mantra; maybe we can chant it together. The universe may not always be responsive, but it does seem to have a great sense of humor.

In the meanwhile, Coulson and I are going to swap our “I’ve always dreamed of living in a beautiful beach community like Manhattan Beach, California” essays. Through all of the legal drama, he really just wants to know if he’s a good writer. I have a feeling he is; he certainly has quite a story to tell. And now, thanks to him, so do I.