In a hot Publix parking lot in south St. Petersburg, Howie Guja, the guy with the megawatt smile and the Publishers Clearing House blazer, took a selfie behind a minivan as he held an oversize novelty check for $10,000.<\/p>\n
Guja and a camera operator named George had flown into Tampa on Dec. 3 from New York. The check traveled separately by FedEx. Cramming it into an overhead compartment, they knew from experience, would beat it up.<\/p>\n
The men were in town as the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol, of which they are the sole members. They were preparing to surprise a St. Petersburg resident.<\/p>\n
The prize patrol was bigger years ago. So was Publishers Clearing House.<\/p>\n
The company, which in its heyday announced winners via Super Bowl ads, was purchased out of bankruptcy in July by a Miami-based gambling company.<\/p>\n
There are stories you can read in the New York Times about the layoffs and the \u201cfor life\u201d winners who\u2019d thought their sweepstakes wins meant big annual checks forever \u2014 but who were no longer getting paid. The company, under the new owners, said it is ensuring all future prizes are guaranteed.<\/p>\n
Guja and George were not in St. Petersburg to talk about that, though. The prize patrol was in town to give someone a very good day, and to capture it for social media so that the self-feeding cycle continues. Guja does these three or four times a month, all over the country.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a nice way to earn a paycheck, he said, by telling people they\u2019ll have money to get their heat turned on or put a down payment on a house. It has also given him perspective outside the bubble of major cities on how people really live.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven my friends who travel for work, they\u2019ll just go to Chicago or something,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes we\u2019re in places that are so random or remote and isolated \u2014 but there\u2019s always interesting people \u2014 and the 10 grand is a lot of money.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get to see the real America.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Pete\u2019s sweepstakes winner<\/p>\n
By noon, 76-year-old Patrick Bradley was deep into his daily routine of sitting in the living room with the TV tuned to \u201cCSI\u201d reruns and a pack of smokes nearby. As Gary Sinise solved a crime, Bradley swiped at his phone, stroking a digital golf ball toward a cartoon windmill.<\/p>\n
Every so often, to keep playing such games on the Publishers Clearing House app, he\u2019d have to watch a commercial, often an ad for an online slots casino.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how Bradley earns tokens \u2014 billions of tokens \u2014 which become sweepstakes entries. He\u2019s been after a prize for decades, since back when he had to enter by mail.<\/p>\n
Bradley slipped and fell last year, faceplanted on his wood floor. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, he said. Since then, he can\u2019t really move too well. That has him playing more on the app, too.<\/p>\n
Publishers Clearing House no longer works with publishers, selling magazines or any other sort of consumer products. These days the company sells, to advertisers, the attention of millions of people playing games and hoping for a miracle in the form of a check.<\/p>\n
Winning is so astronomically unlikely that it might as well be a certainty that you will never win, and yet, at around 12:35 p.m., Bradley opened his door to find Guja smiling at him with a check, flowers and a bottle of champagne.<\/p>\n
Bradley, shocked, had to sit down. An old wasp nest clung to the wall above him. The paint was peeling in spots. The windows of the 70-year-old house looked original.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am so overwhelmed, and so happy. I was just in there adding tokens,\u201d Bradley told them. \u201cI do that all day long.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finances are tight. As Guja interviewed Bradley for the camera, they paused so that a cable installer could drill a hole in the wall. Bradley was trying to save a few dollars a month by switching providers.<\/p>\n
Guja asked Bradley what he would do with the money.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur appliances, they\u2019re kind of old and cranky,\u201d Bradley said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to upgrade some of our appliances.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut isn\u2019t there anything fun?\u201d Guja asked him.<\/p>\n
Bradley said that would be up to his wife. \u201cAnything fun I\u2019m going to leave up to her.\u201d<\/p>\n
They called her on the phone, at a hair appointment, to let her know what was going on.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re f\u2014ing kidding me,\u201d Carol Bradley said through speakerphone as the camera rolled.<\/p>\n
Real America.<\/p>\n
As they waited for Bradley\u2019s wife to come home, Bradley talked about the book titled \u201cThe Eagle on My Arm: How Wilderness and Birds Saved a Veteran\u2019s Life\u201d about his life story, which starts with PTSD suffered in Vietnam and culminates with him co-founding the Avian Veteran Alliance, a nonprofit that pairs struggling veterans with injured birds of prey.<\/p>\n
He occasionally gives inspirational talks, he said, promoting his philosophy of \u201cembrace the suck.\u201d<\/p>\n
What was he embracing recently?<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t walk, I can\u2019t use my fingers, my insurance only covers eight physical therapy sessions,\u201d he said, \u201cbut the point is, if you\u2019re going through hell, keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol arrived and was asked what fun thing she\u2019d spend money on. She glanced up at the house and said, \u201crepairs,\u201d before retreating into the backyard.<\/p>\n
It appeared that, perhaps, this was the fun part. Bradley finished a cigarette. Guja helped him to his feet carefully and escorted him into the house by the arm.<\/p>\n
Guja reminded him it was possible to win again. Bradley vowed to keep playing the games. He could always use $10,000 \u2014 everyone could.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a hot Publix parking lot in south St. Petersburg, Howie Guja, the guy with the megawatt smile…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[41548,41547,596,43587,2231,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-77559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-howie-guja","tag-patrick-bradley","tag-pinellas-county","tag-publishers-clearing-house","tag-publix","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}