When my aunt was younger and healthier, she actually used to make a great supplementary income (as in generous amounts of pin money) by getting in on promotions like this. She's even done a few of them in the last couple of years or so in hopes of winning a T-Shirt. Most of the contests in which she participated involved cash prizes, and she was really dedicated to this. She didn't work outside the home, so she didn't have anywhere else she needed to be during those times when she needed to be home by her own phone. Of course, in some cases, she could call the station from anywhere, so it would be playing in her car (her husband, daughter, or someone else driving, as my aunt is blind), and she would carry around a transistor radio when she went to doctor's appointments, shopping, visiting, etc.One thing that I was really into (even though I never won a thing) was Cover-Up Bingo, which was being run by an Anderson station called WHUT (no longer operating).I was going to college in Indianapolis at the time, but I had time off in the area of the contest during that particular semester.The radio station didn't broadcast inside of my apartment, so I would drive to the parking lot of a near-by shopping center.I'm almost thinking that this took place after I'd gotten my graduation present of a Pacer and occurred during what was called Fleximester. This would be 1976, and my Fleximester course (four weeks of concentrated study in one area) found me volunteering at Fountain Square Girls' Club in the evening and having the day free for whatever.It's coming back to me now.Anyway, I would have the back seats folded inward to form a flat surface and would go back there and play.Paul Harvey came on right before then, and I would listen to him. Then, I'd be back on the surface surrounded by bingo cards and with a container full of pennies.They would usually do at least two games. One game would be something like the first person to form an X with its midpoint in the middle, or the first person to make a border around the sides of a card, or even the first person to get a bingo in the traditional way. But the main game was finding a first person to cover up a card. Once you covered up a card, you had awhile to get to a phone and call in to report your card. I believe the prize for a winning card was $100, which was pretty good pay back then--and certainly nothing to sneeze at even now.That seems like quite a game where you could get an entire above-ground swimming pool (plus other goodies) for being the winner--that is, as long as you provided the dismanteling, moving, reconstructing, etc.
