Ralph was a person who believed in having fun. He also was quite a clever guy, and managed to combine his cleverness with his fun. One thing Ralph did for fun was enter contests. It wasn't something he spent a major part of his time doing but on occasion he would jump into a contest and the Certs contest was the one which really paid off.

Certs had a contest placed in the Boston Globe comic section, and probably other papers around the country, which involved  "finding the hidden treasure" through a variety of clues presented in ongoing editions of the Globe comics. Ralph took to this adventure with all the enthusiasm of a 12 year old boy obsessed. True, I was actually annoyed at some point that he just wouldn't let it go. Well, I ate those words when I learned he was a runner up for $50,000 shortly after we bought our first home and I was pregnant with Lucy in 1983.  Needless to say, that money would come in handy and when he actually won we were both rather dumbfounded.

In  short, Ralph figured out that the hidden treasure was in Goldfield, Nevada, a former bustling city in Nevada which became almost a  ghost town at some point. He, along with 888 other contestants, found the hidden treasure located in the sheriff's office. There was then a runoff for determining the 1st place winner in which you had to write an essay explaining how you arrived at the answer. This is where the advice, "Kids, stay in school" comes in to play---Ralph beat out the other 888 contestants with his writing skills. The clever essay written as a dialog between Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes can be accessed here as a pdf file: Ralph's Cert's Essay.

Upon winning the $50,000 Ralph was asked to attend a big celebration in Goldfield, Nevada where there was a parade, ceremony and various festivities. There was a little drama happening around these events, mainly being that I was 8 1/2 months pregnant and Lucy was due to arrive within the period in which these events were to occur. Ralph did not want to miss the birth of his first child and after much negotiation, his brother John agreed to go in his stead if needed. Fortunately, Lucy must have known something was up, so she decided to ease the situation by being born 3 weeks early. There are several articles which where published describing these events but my favorite is titled, "Baby cooperates in Goldfield celebration" which appeared in the Tonophah Times-Bonanza (for Greater Nevada), Thursday August 18, 1983. Here's a link to the article:  Baby Cooperates...

There is another fun article that was written in Sweepstakes Magazine in 1984 located here:  "A Peak, a Point and a Field".

Ralph entered another contest put on by Beatrice Company and was a runner up. He did not take the grand prize and there was some suggestion that the advertising company that put on this contest was the same as for the Certs contest, and it would not look too good to have the same #1 winner.  But  he did win $1,000 as a runner up based upon the following 6 line verse describing his favorite ways to use Beatrice products:

Tonight I awoke from a singular dream:

My Avis car raced with the Beatrice Team!

With Soup Starter's flag came a thunderous smoke;

Along Sizzlean Strip I sped, going for broke.

I crossed the Red Stripe with ten thousand fans screaming,

And captured the Treasure Hunt Prize---just by dreaming!

Ralph's humor was well-noted.  This is a picture of "The artist as a young cowboy", (my description) taken by Chris Little in the basement at their Yale dormitory. Cute.