Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 17/99) - Lightning has struck twice for Philip Goulet.

The 78-year-old Ndilo grandfather said he felt the electricity March 8 after realizing he'd won $21,000 on a Western Canada Lottery blackjack scratch ticket.

On his last ticket and on his last five chances, Goulet had beat the dealer's score of 20 with a perfect 21, but then had a little trouble reading the amount of the prize jackpot.

"I'm kind of blind and I usually win $2 at a time, but this didn't look like a 2, it looked like a 21," said Goulet, who added, "I called my wife, Madelene, over, and she said it looks like $21,000."

"I started yelling, and my wife started running around and called my youngest girl, my baby girl, and she said she'd be right there," Goulet said.

Goulet said he brought the winning ticket to Grace Burton at Extra Food's Sport North lottery kiosk and received a positive reaction.

"She said, 'Holy smokes you've done it again,'" he said.

Burton said Monday that the ticket was the second winner she'd sold Goulet, who bagged $50,000 through Lotto 6/49 a couple years ago.

She said on the most recent occasion, Goulet's wife had come to the kiosk with a $10 Lotto 6/49 winner looking to pick up more tickets for her husband but unsure which ones to get.

"I said to buy his regular tickets -- five blackjacks, four quick picks and a plus Lotto 6/49," said Burton. "He calls me his lucky charm."

Back in Ndilo, Goulet said Monday part of the money would go toward repairing his Chevy Lumina, a car he purchased with the first windfall. The rest is earmarked for his family -- including his 98-year-old mother, his wife, 10 children, 40 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren -- though he doesn't have much faith it'll go that far.

"Today money is nothing -- you can't live without it, but it really is nothing," said Goulet, who added that he was an avid poker and blackjack player as a young man in the 1930s and '40s.

"Fifty thousand dollars today was like $5,000 in 1934."

Sporting a baseball cap and thick-lensed glasses, Goulet said arthritis prevents him from getting around too much anymore and that the weekly lottery tickets offer a nice distraction.

And though with his poor eyesight he can't always recognize family members until they speak -- or in the case of the 40 grandchildren, identify themselves -- they do prove a great support to him in return.

"I'm too old to get out much, but they bring me caribou and help out all over," he said.