I have been on a long journey, in fact, one of fifty years duration. This journey began on August 15, 1959, in Roanoke, VA, when I married my beloved companion and friend, Mary Lee. After a courtship of four years and nine days, as she loves to remind me and others, we were joined in holy matrimony at Cave Spring Baptist Church. God had led us together after she set her goals and I committed my life to the Lord for the mate of His choosing. She had written down upon a piece of paper what it was that she wanted in a husband. He must be "tall, dark, handsome, and a preacher," she had written. For my part, by the time I was a senior in high school, in what must have seemed like a rather ridiculous desperation of failing to find a permanent relationship on my own, I asked the Lord to take over. Therefore, through His providential leading, by that summer, we came face to face at a Youth for Christ Bible study. We had our first official date, soon thereafter, at the insistance of a friend of mine who was dating Mary Lee's best friend. On that "double-date" with the two of them, we attended a Youth for Christ ralley on a Saturday night. Since that time, we have been constant companions and the subjects of a beautiful love story. The quality of our God blessed relationship has continually deepened and strengthened over the past fifty-four years plus a number of added days at the time of this writing. Thus we celebrated our fiftieth Golden Wedding Anniversary on August 16, 2009, at the Mountain View Recreation Center in Roanoke. This was arranged and put together by our two daughters, Alethea Adkins and Chara Tolbert, who did a wonderful job of beautifying the place and bringing together a large number of our good friends and relatives. What a blessed and emotional time this whole experience has been with the stirring up a long string of wonderful and precious memories which have accumulated over many years, a lot which had become rather latent due to the ordinary busyness of our lives!