Beginner’s Luck Nets Ojai Man $13 Million : Lottery: Despite his newfound wealth, retired aerospace worker has few plans for his winnings.

Daniel Percy Lattimore is the kind of Super Lotto winner longtime players love to hate.

The 75-year-old Ojai resident only started playing the game three months ago. Five bucks, twice a week. Always Quick Picks. No rituals.

And most frustrating to long-losing Lotto dreamers, few plans for his new millions. That’s $13 million. Or, put another way, $650,000 a year for the next 20 years.

“After taxes, I’ll have $468,000 to blow,” said Lattimore, sitting Friday in a striped, short-sleeve cotton shirt and worn jeans in the California Lottery’s Ventura office.

“That gives me $1,000 a day, doesn’t it? That might be hard to spend. I might even buy a fishing license.”

He won’t move out of his double-wide mobile home at the Ojai Villa, Lattimore insists. Won’t take long trips. Has no plans to make any large investments.

About all he’s thinking of buying right now are a few nice cameras, a white Ford Bronco--no connection to O.J.; he just likes them--and a flashy red Ferrari.

For the immediate future, Lattimore’s jackpot means little more than ending a monthly battle to pay bills on his modest income as a retired contracts administrator for Rockwell International.

His wife of 30 years, Kathryn, has suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for about 10 years, Lattimore said. It costs $2,000 each month just to pay for the care she needs in a nearby convalescent home, he said.

“This lifts the single problem I’ve had in my life,” Lattimore said. “Taking care of my wife. Because I have to take care of my wife.”

Lattimore, admittedly a bit shellshocked, had not even notified his five children about his big win before discussing it with the media Friday afternoon. He said he planned to tell his three sons and two daughters, ranging in age from 26 to 55, later that day.

He said he would also notify Kathryn’s four adult children, including a daughter who lives in Ojai.

Although lottery officials announced late Wednesday that a winning ticket had been purchased at a Shell station in Oak View, Lattimore did not come forward until Friday. That’s because he didn’t bother to check his numbers until Friday morning, he said.

Lattimore said he had bought the winning ticket at the gas station on Monday and shoved the paper in his billfold. There it stayed until Friday morning, when he picked up Kathryn for his daily visit and drove to a local grocery store for food.

While Kathryn waited in the car, Lattimore walked a few feet down the road to Ojai Liquor to check the numbers from the Wednesday drawing and to buy another set for Saturday’s contest.

“I like the girls in there, so I’d rather go over there than to the gas station,” he said of the liquor store, his favored place to buy Super Lotto tickets.

When the clerk put the ticket in the machine, it gurgled and spit back a piece of paper that said “winner,” Lattimore said. The clerk, whose name he does not know, giggled and congratulated him, he said.

He started to cry and got weak-kneed, Lattimore recalled.

“I don’t know whether it was joy or fright,” he said.

He explained his win to Kathryn, still sitting in the car. But she didn’t understand, Lattimore said. So he drove her back to the care center, dropped his groceries off at the mobile-home park and drove straight to the lottery office to claim his winnings.

And after gamely facing a brief media frenzy, he planned to return, alone, to his Ojai mobile home.

“What do I need a new house for?” he said. “I don’t have a wife [at home]. I don’t have any kids. But I might have someone come in now and run the vacuum.”