At my elbow as I write these words is “Modern English Readings, Fifth Edition,” a college textbook published in 1946 by Rinehart & Company, Inc. On the first blank page, written in an impeccable hand with a fountain pen, is this claim of ownership: “Mr. & Mrs. James E. Minick, ’46.” My mom and dad were students at Westminster College in Pennsylvania when they purchased this textbook. Dad had returned the year before after serving as an infantryman in the fighting in Italy’s Po River Valley. After the defeat of the Third Reich, he and thousands like him were slated to join the invasion forces against the Japanese. Then came the atomic bomb, and Dad headed home to marry and go to college. Like so many of us, I suspect, I wish I’d asked my parents more questions about their past. One minor regret has to do with this textbook. …