Three Coins: Cold Night

Sam the main character finds that he has a problem of being left behind by the women in his life. At a very early age his mother dies and leaves him and his father. When he graduates from high school he loses his only girl friend. Both of these events are devastating to him. But it only in college that he loses the love of his life to circumstances beyond his control. He runs away to U. S. Army for a stay before returning and marrying. Later he loses the fourth female from his life and appears completely lost. Then he returns to the town of Roelston for a funeral of a person he didn't really care about and his ventures goes on. This is an exciting tale of the life of Sam Riggs and his struggles to find happiness.

I was born in Lawrence County Tennessee on September 15, 1934. I was the last of eight children and my early years were times of little money due to the "Great Depression." Lack of finances may have crimped the niceties of life but there was generally plenty of food available from the farm. There were always some reading materials around my home. Literature seemed to provide a dreamy escape from the fields of agriculture. Cotton was raised for the money crop along with some peanuts and potatoes. We had hogs for family consumption and for selling cured meat in Lawrenceburg and around the communities. I will say that being the baby of the family I got the thickest gravy and all the hand me down male clothes I needed. I can only remember love in that big dark home in my early days. Electricity had not come our way at that time and we read by coal oil lamps. I attended Fall River elementary school near by. It was then that I rode the old school bus to high school. I finished high school at Lawrence County High School in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, Martin College at Pulaski, Tennessee and Middle Tennessee State at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I taught elementary school, spent time in military service and did some manufacturing work before settling down to my life's occupation. The main work of my life was for the State of Tennessee with the Department of Public Welfare, later called Human Services. I retired from that job in January 1997 with a little less than forty years of accumulated service with the State. But went back to work at the same work place for the State on two occasions. My jobs over more than thirty-five years just about covered all the work areas of the Department with most of the years being the administrative head of the local office. I enjoyed this work greatly because I loved the people with which I worked and the cliental as well. My early years were greatly influenced by the rural community in which I lived in those days of very little money. The churc