But to retreat back to a happier time, on April 6, 1979 I married Sandra, my childhood sweetheart. Our pastor, Charles Wright, performed the ceremony. At one of our counseling sessions, he had asked me, “have your parents approved of this marriage?” I told him that they had. “Sandra, do your parents approve of this marriage?” She answered in the affirmative. “Both of them?” he asked incredulously. Many years later, his wife was working at my company when Sandra and I celebrated (I think it was) our tenth anniversary. “Well,” I said proudly, “we’ve made it ten years and a lot of people didn’t think we’d make it one.”
“I didn’t think you’d make it six months,” she declared dryly. She obviously wasn’t kidding. We have been through some very hard times together, but in 2019 Sandra and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary and we are now working on 50. I love her much, much more today than I did the day I married her. She is my inspiration, my very best friend and more than life to me.