Just a Family Bible
----- We were scrounging around a bunch of junk at an auction in the farm country near Norton, Kansas when I spotted an old, tattered Family Bible resting on a bench with a bunch of other books. Marcella was off looking at kitchen stuff with a mob of other people.
----- The Bible was ancient. The brittle, woodlike finish on the front cover automatically revealed its age. The craftsmanship was intricate and beautiful. I lifted up the cover which came away from the back. My heart dropped. I leafed over to the publisher's page and stared in disbelief. Quickly I closed the pages, put the cover back on, and quietly walked over to Marcella. Soon we were looking at the Bible.
----- "This is special. It's made by the same company I sold Bibles for, while I was in college," I pleaded as we examined it. "It's probably close to 100 years old." I was intent on buying that old Bible; it reminded me of my college summers when I sold Bibles for the Southwestern Company in Nashville, Tennessee. My first summer, spent in northern North Carolina, had been a struggle, fighting against fear and shyness as I tried to make enough money just to break even. As a Bible salesmen, I was virtually a failure, barely making enough to pay my gas home.
----- My dad cosigned for a dark, green 1965 Volks Wagon that fall - brand new! I began working part time during college at a local state mental hospital as a dishwasher to meet my room and car payments. Even after the first summer of selling door-to-door, I had not overcome my intense fear of talking to strangers and speaking in public. A pre-education, normed test suggested that my verbal ability was low, too low to be an educator. I was determined to prove the test wrong and felt that selling Bibles would strenthen my shortcomings.
----- The next spring I signed on to sell again. The job took my team to North Carolina where my roommate worked in Burlington while I worked the scenic, tar-heel country around that city.
----- By the end of my first week, I had made little headway toward my goals. What few books I had sold, mainly $6.00 story books, were purchased by mothers who felt sorry for me. I was discouraged and hated pulling my Family Bible sample out of the case.
----- I was convinced that our Family Bibles were too expensive to sell. At $29.95 (nearly 2 days pay for most of the people I called on), I would always accept the prospect's first "No" and then close again on a cheaper item, usually a story book for children. I had thought the car would make a motivational difference, but it hadn't. I was so scared to stop at houses that, out of fear, I would bypass most of them. The more houses I passed up, the more discouraged I became. By Friday of my first week, I was miserable.
----- Discouragement lead to fear. I found myself parked on the side of the road for nearly an hour, scared of knocking on another door.
----- "At the rate I'm going, I'm not going to be able to eat, much less make my car payments," I mumbled to myself. I checked my wallet and only found a few crumpled dollar bills - enough for a hamburger and a few gallons of gas, but not enough to get back to Oklahoma.
----- At least back in Norman I would be getting paid enough to eat and make my car payments, I thought. That's it!! If I could just make enough sales to get the cash to go back home, my job would be waiting for me.
----- "Oklahoma here I come!" I shouted. My decision seemed to momentarily rejuvenate me, but, instead of knocking on that first door, for some reason I turned my car back toward town to spend my last few dollars on a hamburger.
----- I was busily munching my hamburger at a small drive-in and nervously looking at my map trying to get the courage to find a road to work, when I heard someone tapping on my back window. A middle-aged man was trying to get my attention.
----- "Are you selling those Family Bibles?" the man asked as he walked around to my window.
----- "Why? You want to buy one?"
----- "No," he said pointing to my back seat. "We've got one almost like one of those." He must have spotted the beautiful, white Family Bibles that I had stacked in boxes on my lowered, back seat.
----- "That's great! Do you like it?" I said somewhat cynically. With my luck he was wanting to get his money back or trade a damaged Bible in for one of my new ones.
----- "Listen, son!" he said. "We bought our Family Bible many years ago. It saved our marriage!"
----- My cheeks began to feel prickly and suddenly my food caught in my throat.
----- "You see, my wife and I were fighting a lot back then, and I was drinking. We were newly-weds and were talking about divorce. One day a kid, about like you, came by and caught us both at home. He was selling Bibles... Family Bibles."
----- He paused as he took a breath and brushed back the tears that began to fill his eyes. I gagged silently on my burger and took a quick sip of my drink.
----- "My wife wanted one," he went on with emotional zeal. "She thought it might help our marriage. Yes, it was expensive, but we both decided to get one and put it on our coffee table. As we began to fill out our family history, we turned the pages and began to read the Scriptures. Soon we were reading that Bible together almost every night. After that, we began looking for a church home. The rest is history." He reached out his hand, and I took it.
----- "Son," he said. "Keep up the Lord's work!" He waved as he turned and went back to his car. I put my map down and layed my hamburger aside. I closed my eyes in prayer. With renewed zeal, I was soon knocking on doors.
----- My attitude changed. That Sunday I found a little church, Wayside Christian Church, where I worshipped. I began to look at my job as an opportunity and found myself telling my customers about how a Family Bible changed a man's marriage and a man's life. The sales came; I sold nearly 100 Family Bibles that summer. Oh, I wasn't a great salesman, but I made enough to pay for my tuition and most of my car payments. More important than the monetary aspects of my job, I overcame some fears. I learned to meet and deal with people and became self-sufficient. I overcame a crippling fear of speaking in public and continued selling Bibles until I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1969, after which I began my teaching career.
----- Now that old Family Bible, which we purchased for $5.00 at that auction, rests on our cabinet top. We've had it restored and can open the pages and read it. It has an old Bible dictionary with pictures and a history of the early Protestant churches. That heirloom was published about 1900, though dating is inconclusive and was probably sold by a salesman, just like me, only his Beetle was a Model T or ... maybe a horse and wagon.
Dale W. Hill
