My wife and I loved each other from the moment we met. Maybe not the kind of love that makes young couples drive to Myrtle Beach to elope the weekend they meet but a more playful kind of love that evolved over time.
And where we came from, there was a lot of room to evolve.
We met at a church retreat the summer before college. Melissa Carter had graduated from a high school across town from mine, a Charlotte private school known for its strict ethics and lily-white reputation.
My school, on the other hand, was known for football and little else. But unlike the rest of the players on my team, I was never the kind to chase girls or keep score, so to speak. I dated a few times my senior year without ever falling for anyone. The guys teased me for it. They knew I'd never gone all the way, and they were constantly trying to set me up with cheerleaders and easy girls known to have plenty of sexual experience.
But at 18, I was still a virgin and not ashamed of it.
My name is James Weldon, but my sophomoric friends all called me Well Done for some stupid reason. Well Done gets none, they would say, knowing I wouldn't get upset. They respected me because I could catch a football. And they knew I would never let them down. They also knew my dad was a cop and mother a teacher who had taught most of them along the way. They also knew my older sister Bette, who let's just say didn't have my willpower.
She'd somehow willed her way into the good graces of our high school guidance counselor though, and ended up at Duke, something my parents never understood and never were able to afford.
I, on the other hand, was headed to quiet little Campbell Baptist College on a partial football scholarship that relieved my parents and set me on a course toward a life I could've never dreamed of.
But first came bible camp, the youth retreat where I met the love of my life, sweet Melissa, who took me on a darkened dangerous ride.
She looked then as she looks now, fresh-faced, innocent, pure as the driven snow.