What are your jobs at Vanderbilt?

Trinita: Research assistant in biochemistry. I've been at Vanderbilt for 23 years.

Melvin: Office assistant in biochemistry. I've been here for 44 years.

Where is your favorite place on campus?

Trinita: The 200-year-old tree in the arboretum.

Melvin: Dean Chapman's Garden [The Judy Jean and John E. Chapman Quadrangle]. Our department used to be located there, and I would have lunch under the trees.

What magazines do you subscribe to?

Melvin: Golf, Golf Digest.

Trinita: All sorts of church-related magazines.

Which musical styles do you enjoy listening to?

Melvin: I like the blues and jazz.

Trinita: I like Christian music.

How did you meet?

Melvin: We met at church. A friend of mine introduced us. Then it went from church to work because I told her about a job that was available in the Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt.

Describe your first date.

Melvin: Believe it or not, I took her to church. After church, I cooked her dinner.

Describe your favorite way to spend time together.

Both: On the farm where we have a cabin. We like to watch turkeys and deer and other small game.

Where were you married?

Both: Nashville.

How long have you been together?

Trinita: 22 years.

What is the best thing about working at the same institution?

Trinita: Commuting together and eating lunch together.

What is the most challenging about working at the same institution?

Melvin: Really nothing; we don't have any problems. We see each other two or three times a day, and we have lunch together in the Light Hall snack bar.

Describe the best day you've ever spent together.

Both: Our first honeymoon in Las Vegas. Everything was new then. We stayed in the Tropicana. We also enjoyed traveling to different islands the first six years we were married. We visited St. Thomas, St. Croix, Haiti and Jamaica, sometimes on cruises and sometimes by direct flight.

Who would you want to play the other in a movie about your life together?

Melvin: Whitney Houston.

Trinita: Denzel Washington.

Choose a word or short phrase that best describes your life together up to this moment.

Melvin: Very good. An excellent life.

-- Whitney Weeks

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