Literally, Seven isn't always lucky

Nobody expects much from me. But my last name seems to conjure all sorts of images and expectations.

People consider Seven lucky and spiritual and prime. It's grand: Seven Wonders of the World, the seven seas, seven continents. It's cinematic: "The Magnificent Seven," "Se7en," "Seven Days in May." It's official and universal, as in seven days of the week. And it's heroic, from space missions to Mickey Mantle's jersey.

I go to Las Vegas and get bombarded by 7s — the 7-7-7 slot machines, the "Lucky 7" this and "Super 7" that, and the craps crowd shouting, "C'mon 7!" (I still turn around every time I hear that.) Seven is ubiquitous, and not just for Vegas tourists and suckers. Got a product or system to hawk? Build it around seven principles, habits, chakras, rules, steps, tips or reasons. Or just paste the "7" on willy-nilly, and it'll sell.

Some think I must relish a day like July 7, 2007, as some lucky day. You know, those three 7s lined up like a jackpot. Oh, please.

I remember falling for this 30 years ago. I woke up at exactly 7:07 on 7-07-77. This, I thought, has got to be my lucky day! Four hours later, while at my summer job at a lumber mill, another college kid dropped a creosoted railroad tie on my fingers.

So much for lucky.

In fact, here I am with this luckiest of labels, yet I've never in my fairly long life won a single game of chance, a lottery or any break grand enough to recall. This goes all the way back to second grade. My teacher, a nun, would randomly pluck a name from a box each week to award some lucky student a holy card (think baseball cards with saints). At the end of the year, my name was the only one left. I can't recall actually wanting one. But I still recall getting snubbed.

The trend has pretty much held since.

While I wasn't born lucky, I was born a Seven. People wonder if I made up my name. I'm a print reporter, not a movie star, so why would I make up a name? As my family tells it, some federal employee at the immigration office made it up when my grandparents entered the country from Luxembourg just after the turn of the 20th century. He told them their name sounded too weird to be American and a lot like "Seven." So they and I became Seven.

I admit getting a bit possessive when in that "Seinfeld" episode George thought up a hip child's name of "Seven." I tried to persuade my wife to let me name our son "Apollo Seven." How cool would that have been? He'd reach for the stars! I assured her we could call him Pol. She wouldn't budge — yet she eagerly swapped her family's surname for mine.

Ultimately, she was right about Apollo Seven.

A few years ago, a bank teller told me, "Hey, cool name." Thanks, I said wearily. She had that tone that made me fret she might be a "Star Trek: Voyager" freak about to ask me if I was related to that alien "Seven-of-Nine." Then I saw her last name was Six. We instantly bonded and commiserated. She was nice, and we held up the line longer than we should have. But I never returned to her window. I knew we couldn't be friends. Seven and Six equals Thirteen. (This is the sort of attempted humor number-named people generally keep to ourselves.)

I've always wanted to organize a get-together for number names, One through Ten. But there would be inevitable politics. Who would get the head of the table? One? Or Ten? Why not Seven, clearly the most popular?

The irony of having a number name is that I do not care for numbers. I am a word-man all the way. In fact, fear of numbers likely made me so.

I'm also a staunch disbeliever in the general idea of luck. Fate I can understand, but I tend to side with the old movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, who famously said, "The harder I work, the luckier I get." So even when I gamble, I steer away from trying to score the jackpot. I couldn't even win a holy card. I sit at the blackjack table, where, if you pay attention, you get at least the illusion of control — and at least lose slowly.

I have been lucky, in one respect. I love the name and am eternally grateful that the immigration guy's lucky number wasn't 5 or 11 or 14 ...

Richard Seven: rseven@seattletimes.com