The Winners

When the telephone rang in the six-room walkup apartment of Mr. & Mrs. Benjamin Cohen of The Bronx, Mrs. Cohen, a 42-year-old grandmother, lifted the receiver. Carefully she answered the three questions put to her by the man at the other end of the line. At that point, Mrs. Cohen walked into pandemonium. She had hit the $28,000 jackpot on CBS's Sing It Again giveaway program.

Friends and neighbors began piling in and the phone rang without stopping. The Cohens' four daughters, two of whom are married, were jubilant. Benjamin Cohen, a laundry manager, and his wife sat in stunned silence for a while, scarcely able to believe their good luck on that fine evening last June.

Last week Mrs. Cohen was able to sum up her experience: "What a headache being lucky can be!" Soon after the first night's excitement, the Cohens learned what it was like to be continually annoyed and worried. After a tractor was delivered at the apartment, they took steps to head off a deluge of heating units, thousands of cans of food, lawnmowers, furniture for bedroom and living room.

The Cohens eventually decided that they had better hire a lawyer to advise them. They had to rent a loft in a warehouse (at $50 a month) to store the prizes as they arrived. For five weeks Mrs. Cohen stayed away from her job as forelady in an overalls rental concern, to answer mail and telephone calls. Between times she tried to figure out which of the hundreds of prizes she and the family should keep. When there was nothing else to worry about, well-meaning friends took up the slack by telling the Cohens that they would end up thousands of dollars in the hole after taxes and expenses had finally been paid.

Last week, in the loft, the Cohens auctioned off all their winnings except a Nash automobile, a $900 television set, a few pieces of jewelry and a $1,000 merchandise slip from Saks Fifth Avenue. They saw a $1,700 diamond wristwatch go for $550, a $1,000 tile bathroom for $430, a $900 home workshop for $410. When the auctioneer's gavel fell for the last time, the Cohens had taken in about $4,000 in cash from their $28,000 windfall. After lawyer bills, warehouse rentals, auctioneer's commission, taxes and Mrs. Cohen's five weeks' lost salary were deducted, they hoped they would just about break even. Sighed Mrs. Cohen: "I never hope to win anything again. Once is enough."

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