As a child, Rusty Sledge was the smallest, poorest and smartest student in his class. Because of this, the other kids teased him, picked on him, and bullied him to the brink of suicide, except for Raven Simpson, his intellectual rival. When his dad told him, "Come home beat-up again, you'll get a beating from me," Rusty uses his sock full of pennies to level the playing field, and his over-sized nemesis, Barry Buckley. As an adult, with the help of three mentors: a school teacher, an old coal mine operator, and a West Virginia State Trooper, he turns his Sock Full Of Pennies into a world-wide coal mining corporation and uses it to take-on corporate bullies, and crushes a ruthless coal cartel and their illegitimate labor union. He also marries Raven and they have a little boy named Jacob. This story will grab you and hold you inside Rusty's world until you read the last ironic word, and leave you with the lesson that if you stand your ground and face adversity head-on, it truly does get better.