Some years ago, I hand-carried a friend's family Bible, chock full of history, to her relatives in England. She wanted to make sure the record of events would not be lost. Seeing their joy in this big old leather-bound book helped me better appreciate my friend's love for the book, not just its message.
A while after this, my aunt and I found a Bible in an old trunk in her basement. She told me that it belonged to her mother-in-law, Beulah, who was in a nursing home. The Bible had been printed in 1893, but it had actually been issued to commemorate "the Jubilee Year," or the 400th anniversary of the "Discovery of America" by Columbus in 1492. I fell in love with the book immediately.
When my aunt and I talked again, she said Beulah had probably bought it from a door-to-door salesman. In rural Pennsylvania, where I grew up, we didn't have big grocery stores and shopping malls. We counted on a man named Solie, who came three times a week with an enclosed truck. The back of this truck opened to reveal baked and canned goods and penny candy, among other things. Solie may well have sold Beulah her Bible.
