"Initial Event!"

Have you ever noticed how quickly time passes as you get a little "long in the tooth"? It seems like Christmas was just here, and now it's back again. This coming year, I will be celebrating my 45th year out of high school (I still look good)! Thirty-four years ago Earl Campbell won the Heisman Trophy, the NFL played its 5000th game (Bengals 27- Chiefs 7) and Star Wars was the top box office smash.

What is an anniversary? Anniversary: a day that commemorates or celebrates a past event that occurred on the same day of the year as the initial event. I guess that sums it up pretty well, except it does leave out some stuff, like what has gone on since that "initial event". My "initial event" took place thirty-four years ago, when my wonderful wife decided to take my name, and my life changed forever. I certainly didn't deserve her, she was, and is, vibrant, soft-hearted, kind, considerate, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and, did I say, beautiful! We have shared dinners, breakfasts and ice cream cones, and with her each time is a memory for me. She carries me when things aren't so good, and keeps me humble when I get "full of myself". When all else fails, I know she will always be there for me, and I know she feels the same way about me!

If I could put my heart in my hands, it would have "Adrienne" printed across it. I could not imagine my life without her. An unknown writer once said "You don't marry someone you can live with - you marry the person you cannot live without"; I don't know who he was, but he couldn't have been more right.

Each day I pray, and in my prayers I always thank God for allowing me to have "My Adrienne", the best answer I ever had to any prayer! My words are weak when I try to say what she means to me, it's like trying to hold a bubble without breaking it, or capture a ring of smoke.

As I close this message to the world about my wife, I will turn to some who are more well spoken than I: "I love you, not for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you", Roy Croft: and this final statement which really says it all, "Real love stories never have endings", Richard Bach. I know all these words to be true. Happy Anniversary to my WONDERFUL, AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL WIFE!! I LOVE YOU ADRIENNE!!