You've heard the anecdote in which the wife suggests to her husband that they renew their marriage vows and he responds with uncommon delight, "You mean they've expired?!"

My wife and I did not renew our wedding vows, but last Sunday we attended services at the Greensboro church where our marriage began 50 years ago. As we climbed the front steps, accompanied by bridesmaid Vi Kivett and her husband, Allen, memories came flooding.

Our wedding occurred on the hottest day of the year, made more uncomfortable by an attack of acute anxiety that had me frantically chomping gum when I showed up for the rehearsal the night before. Bachelorhood had been good to me. So the lady in waiting had to be pretty special for me to give it up.

But when a man meets a young, attractive young woman with an upbeat personality who can quote reams of Shakespeare at a mere mention of Macbeth and whip up a batch of mouthwatering waffles in a matter of minutes, he doesn't usually walk away.

As I entered the church for the rehearsal, she rushed up the aisle to greet me with, "Please! Remove that gum before somebody sees you!"

"Careful, honey," I cautioned with typical bachelor independence, "we aren't married yet."

We've had a good half-century together, remarkable, I suppose, since 50 percent of today's marriages end in divorce. But when someone married for any length of time tells you "We've never had a cross word," you're probably in the presence of a world-class liar.

I once visited an elderly couple who had married when she was only 16.

"Eve," I said. "you were so young, you probably never had another boyfriend."

"Yes, I did," she replied. "Two. Both now dead." And, glancing toward her husband, added, "I guess I should have married one of them."

Yes, being human, they bickered some. However, I'm convinced they truly loved each other.

Most of the credit for our long-term "togetherness" goes, as it so often does, to the female partner in the undertaking. I know without question that I chose the right mate for me.

What's it like, half a century of waking up every morning and seeing the same face on the pillow beside you? In the musical "My Fair Lady," Professor Henry Higgins answers admirably:

I've grown accustomed to her face.

She almost makes the day begin.

Her smiles, her frowns,

Her ups, her downs

Are second nature to me now;

Like breathing out and breathing in.

At the end of our honeymoon in Western North Carolina, I pulled into a service station to gas up. A lanky mountaineer with a big grin lifted the hood of my beautiful, Carolina blue and white, retractable hard top convertible.

"Had airy fuss yit?" he asked.

Since I had painstakingly removed all "just married" evidence from the car, I asked how he knew we were newlyweds.

"Well," he drawled, "there's a note here inside the radiator cap that says, 'Just married. Kid us a little bit, please.'"

It had to be the work of my since-sixth-grade friend, Grady Cooper Jr., the only person I know courteous enough to add "Please" to a note inside a radiator cap.

When I called Grace Methodist to arrange for Sunday's altar flowers, church secretary Judi Mitchell reminded me that actor Charlton Heston also had married there while in the Air Force at Greensboro.

Heston -- who, as Moses, parted the Red Sea and, as Michelangelo, painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling -- a few years ago also revisited Grace Methodist. "He was very sweet and friendly," Mrs. Mitchell said of the actor who died in April.

One spring, I saw a neighbor's cat snatch a female cardinal from our bird feeder and devour it before my eyes, ignoring my yells from the porch and the male cardinal's frantic cries as it fluttered about helplessly.

For weeks afterward, the male came at twilight and, perched on a tree limb, pitifully cheeped out its grief and loneliness, as sad as any song of sorrow I've ever heard. How devastating it must be for anyone or any thing to lose a well-loved mate.

Yes, if someone shoved a marriage renewal contract in front of me today, I'd reach for the pen and say, "You bet! Where do I sign?" Most of you long-married men would also.

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