Magnificent Stories for Travelers

By Harry Katzan Jr.

This book is not a work of fiction. Many of the stories
actually happened somewhere; well, most of them.
The names and events have been adjusted a bit to
entertain the audience.
The work is for entertainment only. It is not intended
to be a work of literature.
The book is protected by copyright. However, the ideas
included herein may be used at will. Attribution would
be appreciated.
The book contains no violence, no sex, or no bad
language. It may be enjoyed by persons of all ages.
The author would like to thank his daughter Kathryn
for assistance with the project and for her love and
kindness.
Thanks for enjoying the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9781663263582

Harry Katzan Jr.

Harry Katzan, Jr. is a professor who has written several books and many papers on computers and service, in addition to some novels. He has been an advisor to the executive board of a major bank and a general consultant on various disciplines. He and his wife have lived in Switzerland where he was a banking consultant and a visiting professor. He is an avid runner and has completed 94 marathons including Boston 13 times and New York 14 times. He holds bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees.

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Copyright © 2024 Harry Katzan Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-6357-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-6356-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-6358-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024910999

iUniverse rev. date: 06/03/2024

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART ONE

Getting Started

Description of the Book

PART TWO

The Stories

Short Stories

Story #1 How to Succeed in Business

Story #2 A Good Student

Story #3 How the System Works

Story #4 The B-52 Apron

Story #5 Charlotte Airport

Story #6 Wrestling Championship

Story #7 Life Capsule

Story #8 Running in the Hallway

Story #9 Blocked Funds

Story #10 Run, Run, Run

Story #11 The Wrong House

Story #12 Talking in Math Class

Story #13 The Neighborhood

Story #14 Running

Story #15 Being Followed

Story #16 Cigarettes

Story #17 How to Play Polo

Story #18 One Last Thing

Moderate Stories

Story #19 The Survivorship Bias

Story #20 I Would Never Call the Cops

Story #21 Two Jobs

Story #22 Other Machines on Watch

Story #23 Cans and More Cans

Story #24 The Gym Class

Story #25 Cheating in Class

Story #26 Shining Shoes

Story #27 Football Kicker

Story #28 Big Money

Story #29 The Broken Window

Story #30 Army Anecdote

Story #31 Sports

Story #32 The Paper Company

Story #33 College Fun

Story #34 The Torn Shirt

Story #35 The Bully Gets It

Story #36 On an English Road

Story #37 The Queen

Story #38 The First Lady

Story #39 The Royal Baby

Story #40 One Last Thing

Longer Stories

Story #41 Where did That Computer Go

Story #42 From Outer Space

Story #43 The Rescue

Story #44 The Iranian Students

Story #45 To France and Back

Story #46 What Happened to My Data

Story #47 Please Be Careful

Story #48 Don’t Mess with Me

Story #49 It Happens Every Fall

Story #50 Ai

About the Author

SOME OTHER NOVELS by HARRY KATZAN, JR.

A Case of Espionage

Shelter in Place

Life is Good

A Tale of Discovery

The Terrorist Plot

An Untimely Situation

The Final Escape

The Day After The Night Before

Retired Old Men Eating Out, Vol. 1

Retired Old Men Eating Out. Vol 2

The Last Adventure

For Margaret, with all my love

now and forever

INTRODUCTION

This is a book of short stories for travelers. What do you do when riding is a car, plane, or boat, or even staying in a hotel room. What about waiting for a lesson of some kind to be completed. You don’t really have enough time to go home and back. You could be waiting for an appointment, or even a cake to bake. If you are deeply in to a good novel, you don’t really want to stop reading. If you stop, you have to re-read. Maybe you like to read, but not hard to read novels or math books. Perhaps, you would just like to read something different once in a while. Perhaps y0u would just like to chuckle or say Oh my. It’s also possible that you just don’t want to drag some big book around.

We can all read and the modern person is smart through the wonders of evolution. Through modern education, we all know how to use that smartness. A big part of it is reading. Reading is fun, especially if you can enjoy what you are reading.

This book allows you use your brainpower and enjoy it at the same time. But wait. There are times, plenty of them, where you can’t read some long complicated stuff, because you have to stop. Then picking up from where you were is not at all possible. Then, why start in the first place. Too often, that is the case.

This book is a collection of 50 short little stories. You can read them in minutes. They are what an alternate read should be: a collection of easy-to-read short stories. Read one then later pick up with another story. They are not related. They are not ordered. You can start at the end and work backward. We call a short little story Story#x, and they are numbered and the collection is followed by several pages of blank lines on which you can write your thoughts – such as on tastory, per se, or someone walking by or sitting next to you.

The price of the book is low, so you can give it to an acquaintance or friend or your spouse or one of your kids. There is no bad language, no sex, and no violence. You can put it on the coffee table or read it on vacation – which is the original intent. You can use it to just take notes. One more thing. The book has been copyrighted but the ideas are free. Use them. I would appreciate the attribution.

Happy reading.

The Author,

June 2024

PART ONE

GETTING STARTED

DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK

This book is a form of entertainment with a twinge of education along the way.

The collection of stories is not literature in any sense of the word. The objective is simply to entertain you at a time when you aren’t able to do anything else. However, there is a little grasp of knowledge in each story. The stories range from being a bit mundane to a touch of genius.

In total, there are fifty stories, so start slowly and finish fast. After reading some of this book, kids, or even older ones, will have a new look on life.

The author’s opinion is to start with stories that sound good. The titles are meant to be informative and maybe even humorous. Later, you can graduate to the long jobbies.

Did you ever notice that when you wanted to write something down, you didn’t have even a hunk of paper. Tor that reason, we have some lined paper at the end of the book. It will be good for names, addresses, comments, and perhaps the start of the great American novel. Also complaints about the book.

The stories are categorized into Short Stories, Moderate Stories, and Longer Stories. They reflect not only length, but also content, based on relative importance. There you have it.

Read on and best of luck.

Oh I almost forget. It is a new genre in transportable writing and reading. Don’t ask me as to what that means.

PART TWO

THE STORIES

SHORT STORIES

This is a collection of stories that are short

In length and are easy to read.

They should get you started in

A world wind of ideas

STORY #1

How to Succeed in Business

One of my friends was interested in how to succeed in business. Countless books have been written on the subject. One of the best is a small book written by a Harvard MBA by the name of Jeffrey J. Fox with the title How to Become CEO. Here are five simple ideas:

Always remember your subordinates’ spouses.

Don’t go over budget.

Never underestimate an opponent.

Please, be polite with everyone.

Eat breakfast in your hotel room.

In the book, there are seventy-five of such ideas.

Someone asked Onassis, the wealthy and successful business man, who married Jacqueline Kennedy. Supposedly, he was to have said, Have a good suntan, have a firm handshake, and wear good shoes. It probably isn’t exactly true, but it sounds good.

The suntan is worthy of a few words.. Without question, a person looks better when they have a good suntan for business, social occasions, and just plain living. But, I think we should a little farther with the suntan business.

What does a person do when they are getting a suntan? It is calm. There are no business distractions. You can think better, and make better decisions and come up with better ideas.