His Wife...

I met my wife (Connie) at church. In around 1977, she started to attend my church (Longley Baptist Church). After she joined the church, I asked her would she teach Vacation Bible School. She agreed and I told her I would bring the materials to her apartment. So when I went to take her the materials, she invited me into her apartment to sit down. We started talking and she brought me some Kool-Aid to drink. I dropped the Kool-Aid on the floor and broke the glass….

I told one of my friends about her who encouraged me to ask her on a date…I called her and asked her out on a date and she agreed…

She told me she took tennis lessons and we set up a date to play tennis…I played her and beat her…

We started to date more often…I started going to visit her place and we started going out…

We became very fond of each other…we started spending more and more time with each other…we had several things in common…I would call her long distance when I would travel (didn’t have cell phones back then)…

The first Christmas, I bought her a watch…I liked to play games with her…so I gifted a toy watch…she was still thankful…I then gave her the real watch…

After dating her for a while, she wondered if I was going to marry her…I spent time with the Lord, praying, try to understand some things…[We had been dating about a year or more]…I came to the conclusion that I was in love with her…I talked to my parents about her who relayed that it was my decision…

I went and bought a ring…and on a Saturday evening, I asked her would she marry me…she said yes…I played with her again and gave her a toy ring…but then gave her the real ring…she called her mother, excited with the news…

That Sunday when we got to church, she was walking around church “showing off” her ring…she let people know we were engaged…everybody seemed thrill…

We planned the wedding and decided to have the wedding at Harris Temple Baptist Church…I talked to my Uncle (the pastor), who agreed…

We picked the date, July 7, 1979 to be our wedding date. [some of what seemed to be our confirmations for this ddate seemed to be: we both were the oldest; we both came from a family of 7; we both had mother’s named Dorothy; and in the future, ironically, when we had kids, both of our kids birthdays had the number 7 in them.]

I lived with my parents, though she had an apartment. But as a man, I felt it was my duty to provide for her. So I went and got an apartment for us to live in. I continued to stay with my parents until after we got married, while she stayed in the apartment….

Throughout our marriage, we didn’t have many arguments or falling outs…[she is my best friend; we have been married over 36 years]…