Columbia Man Returns?

Do you remember Columbia Man? He’s appeared in the blog several times, courtesy of historical images from the Columbia, Maryland archives.

Image courtesy of Columbia Maryland Archives

He first appeared in the iconic Rouse Company ad "There goes the 8:11 to Columbia" which I found at Columbia Archives. It ran in Time Magazine in March of 1971. The text begins, "Men walk to work in Columbia, MD. The walker above, engrossed in his Washington Post, makes it in nineteen minutes."

For some reason I am just charmed by Columbia Man. Some bits of early Columbia ephemera just stick with you, I guess.

That is why he came to mind when I noticed this piece from Columbia Patch:

Former Zip Code Nabs Columbia Man $50,000 Prize, Kristin Darnley-Greiner, Columbia Patch

Well! This is a new twist on the old story, I thought.

COLUMBIA, MD — A Howard County man who used his former New York ZIP code to play the Maryland Lottery's Pick 5 game won $50,000, giving him enough money to pay for an upcoming vacation, buy new tires for his wife's vehicle and put some cash into savings.

Any connection to the original Columbia Man of days gone by and this recent lottery winner are purely imaginary, of course. But I probably wouldn’t have read the story if it weren’t for those two words.

Once I had read it, I was left with a problem. I read it again. And again. Here’s the crucial paragraph. See if you can identify the mystery.

According to Maryland Lottery officials, the man regularly plays Pick 3, Pick 4 and Pick 5, although his wife usually purchases the tickets for him. Instead, she was grocery shopping one night before picking up her husband for a relative's birthday party when she stopped at Columbia Auto Care and Wash, 10611 Little Patuxent Parkway. She purchased several lottery tickets for the evening drawing, including the Pick 5 ticket featuring her husband's former ZIP code.

Do you see it? The headline reads:

Former Zip Code Nabs Columbia Man $50,000 Prize

Who purchased these tickets?

Friends, this should be a story about Columbia Woman. But, just as in the Time Magazine article in 1971, Columbia Woman is not the focus of the story. Funny, that.

I wonder what the 1971 Columbia Woman was doing while her husband was walking to work. Is it too silly to hope she was buying* her very own lottery tickets?

Village Green/Town² Comments

*Not silly to hope, but: historically impossible. The first Maryland State Lottery tickets were not sold until May of 1973, the top prize was…$50,000 (approximately $434,200.00 today.)

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