Three Paths to Happiness

PROLOGUE

Three short stories by a master storyteller.

In "The Bet" two college students bet a third one they can survive and thrive without handouts or assistance from the government. They succeed and thrive, winning their bet and becoming famous and well to do over time.

In "Building A Dream" a young engineer was spending the night in his family cabin when, somehow, he was transported back in time to 1873. He rescues an Indian woman from a bear, an uptime woman from brigands and a third one from her husbands murderer. As they live their lives together they introduce modern machinery and petroleum derivatives in their new time stream. Doing this makes them obscenely rich and leads to a happy life free of more modern headaches.

Our hero in Rogers Retreat was a hard scrabble, hot tempered hillbilly womanizer. His temper got him into fights nearly every week or two. Many of his fights and hijinks were ended by law enforcement and resulted in court appearances. Lee had a penchant for pleasuring other men's wives and that got him in trouble once too often resulting in a Judge giving him the choice of jail or the military. Lee chose the military. After 4 years in the Marine Corps Lee returns home, finds love and builds a successful business with the help of his wife's grandfather, his wife and his mother-in-law.