TORONTO - When Loretta DeMizio returned home broke from a trip to the Syracuse casino in New York last week, the customs officer at the border jokingly told her to check her Lotto 6/49 tickets, since the winning stub was purchased in her hometown of Niagara Falls.
When she got home, she urged her husband Carmen to check their tickets. He'd get around to it, he answered. Then they both forgot about it.
On Sunday, after church, he grabbed his usual newspaper and coffee after church, then remembered to check his ticket at the corner store.
When Carmen realized he won $41.3 million, he did the only reasonable thing he could.
He washed his car.
Demizio and his wife Loretta, both 61-year-old retired teachers from Niagara Falls, wanted to remain as calm as they could until they confirmed the winning Lotto 6/49 ticket.
"Now that we have the money in our hands, it's real," Loretta said at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. prize centre Tuesday. "Of course money is going to change our lives, but our goal is for it not to change our personalities."
Carmen purchased the ticket on Wednesday but didn't verify it until Sunday when he walked into a convenience store to check the numbers.
When the huge prize flashed before his eyes, he quietly took the ticket back to his car and drove home.
"I put the ticket on the fridge and went back to the store to get a printout of the winning numbers and put that on the fridge and went outside and washed my car," he said.
But it wasn't until Loretta checked the ticket when the calmness broke.
"I was screaming like a maniac," she smiled.
Their three children came to dinner for a family meeting and they all thought the big news was a terminal illness.
Instead, Carmen cracked open the red wine.
"I told my son, 'Do your happy dance,'" he said.
The Demizios have played the same numbers over a span of 20 years, inspired by New York Yankees player Reggie Jackson, Carmen's brother's football team numbers and birthday dates.
So it's fitting the family now plans on using some of that money to do a U.S. baseball tour, as well as a trip to Tuscany, Italy.
"We want to travel up the west coast, Los Angeles, San Francisco and then we're going to do Boston," said Loretta.
"We love baseball," she said. "We watch nothing else on TV. But, our family is our first priority.
"We have a large family with seven siblings, 15 nieces and nephews and three kids," Loretta said. "We'll use it to pay for their education and education loans."
Carmen also plans to fix up his MG car, which he's owned since 1972. The motor died and it's in need of new life.
"I need to restore it," he said. "That is number one on the bucket list."
(
http://www.lfpress.com/news/canada/2011/07/19/18441341.html)
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