By Mia Watkins | The Birmingham Times
Andrea & Jamal McCaskey
Live: Irondale
Married: September 25, 1992
Met: Meeting each other almost didn’t happen for the McCaskeys. The two met entirely by chance at a special Fifth Sunday service at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church.
“It was a Sunday that I almost didn’t go,” said Jamal. “I’d been out partying all night. I decided to get up and go to church, and she just happened to come in and sit next to me. I noticed she was a visitor, and we struck up a conversation. After church, I saw her in the parking lot, and we talked some more and exchanged numbers.”
Andrea remembers it a little differently.
“He gave you the short version,” she laughed. “It was Fifth Sunday in August 1991. On Fifth Sunday, the male chorus sings, and so every female in Birmingham and all the surrounding counties came to church that day. By the time I got there, I had to park in the neighborhood somewhere. I walked into the church and ended up sitting in the back. He came and sat by me; I did not sit by him. He did notice that I had a visitor card. After church, he said, ‘Hey, I notice you have a visitor card. I usually go to some restaurant to eat. Would you like to eat?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I would love to, but I have family at home. I’m not able to go this Sunday. Thank you for asking.’ He leaves.’”
Andrea said she was actually visiting the church to meet someone else.
“The reason I even came to church that Sunday was because a student that I’d been working with said, ‘Hey, I have someone I want you to meet.’ I go to church and wait for my student to show up so that he can introduce me to whoever this is that he wants me to meet. Well, I waited for about 10 minutes, and he never showed up. So, I got out into the parking lot and ran into Jamal again, and Mayor Arrington was there campaigning, so we struck up a conversation ‘Hey, are you going to vote for Mayor Arrington.’ ‘No, I don’t live in the city limits, what about you?’ ‘I don’t live in the city limits either.’ Well, we learned that we lived about a half mile from each other on 280. We exchanged numbers, and he called me the next Tuesday. He always says he wanted to make me wait a couple of days.”
First date: The two don’t remember the details of their first date besides eating at Ruby Tuesday’s, but they remember what led up to the date and how they felt about each other.
“The Tuesday that he called, he asked me what I was doing, and I had just moved to Birmingham the month before,” she recalled. “When they hooked up my washer, they installed the hot water to the cold water and the cold water to the hot water. I was trying to use some tool that wasn’t the correct tool to make the change. He said, ‘Oh, I have the tool that you need. I’ve got a meeting to go to, but I can drop the tool off.’ He came and dropped the wrench or whatever it was, and that was the first time we saw each other after church.
Andrea remembers finding Jamal intriguing.
“The things I remember about him are that he was someone who was interesting to talk to,” she said. “He could talk about current events, he could talk about himself and things that he liked. He had a job. He had a car and he had his own place to live. All of those things were important.”
Jamal remembers finding Andrea intriguing too.
“She seemed very professional,” he said. “She kind of struck me as a person who I would want to get to know more about.”
The turn: Jamal remembers telling his brother that Andrea was the one.
“We used to joke about ‘this is the one, this is the one,” he said. “One day, I said to him that she might be the one.”
Andrea said it didn’t take her long to realize Jamal was her person.
“I probably knew pretty quickly,” she said. “Both of us were a little older. We were both 29 at the time. I had dated my fair share of knuckleheads, and I could tell he was not a knucklehead. I was probably all in from the beginning. One thing that I’ll always remember is that most of my friends who came from Nashville to visit me or called from Nashville would spend more time talking to him than they would talk to me. He was always able to just be a good friend to all my friends.”
Jamal said he could tell a lot about Andrea from her friend group.
“I’ve always heard that you look at people’s friends, you could tell a lot about them,” he said. “I could tell that her friends liked her a lot and were the kind of people I want to be around, too. That was a plus in my book.”
Jamal said his favorite thing about Andrea is her conviction.
“She speaks her mind, she says what she believes and she doesn’t tell you one thing and mean something else,” he said.
The proposal: The two got engaged in January of 1992 on MLK Day.
“He had been out chopping wood, I don’t even know why he was out cutting down wood,” she remembered. The apartment I was in had a wood-burning fireplace, so he brought some wood to me for the fireplace. After he came in, he said, ‘Hey, what would you say if I asked you to marry me?’ I said, ‘Don’t play with me because I ain’t to be played with with that question.’ I told him, ‘If you’re serious, then, yes, I will marry you.’”
Jamal said he doesn’t remember chopping wood, but he does remember not being nervous to propose.
“I don’t remember bringing wood, and I certainly don’t remember chopping,” he said. “That was the day I decided that this was the one, and it was time to make a move. I was confident in myself and her answer. I knew she would say yes. I don’t mean sound conceited, but we had spent a lot of time together during that time period.”
The wedding: The wedding took place at Andreas’s home church in Nashville. It was presided over by Dr. Clement Fugh and her childhood pastor, Reverend Reed, who travelled from Indianapolis to marry the McCaskeys.
Their colors were peach, cream and a medium shade of blue. The church was filled with loved ones from both their life in Birmingham and from her hometown of Nashville.
“The church was full, and it was just a beautiful ceremony,” she said. “It was just a beautiful time.
Andrea said the memory from that day that she still carries is what Jamal said when she reached him at the altar.
“When I got down the aisle and got to where he was, he said, ‘You look so beautiful,’” she said. “I have remembered that all these years.
Jamal just remembers it being a happy day.
“I remember winking at her mom,” he said. “I remember smiling when Andrea came down the aisle. I remember a spring in my step the whole day. It was just a great day.”
The honeymoon: The two went on a cruise to the Bahamas for their honeymoon, a trip they are about to recreate.
“We did a ballroom dancing class, that’s the one thing I remember about it,” Andrea said.
Jamal said they met other married couples who shared pearls of wisdom.
They brought back a memento, a Lladro figurine of a Black bride and groom, to remember the occasion.
Words of wisdom: Andrea said that newer couples should keep in mind that love is an action.
“Love is more than a feeling,” she said. “Yes, there are days when we disagree and days when we just like, ’Who are you and what have you done with the person I married?’ And you continue to work. Do the work, put in the work and remember what it is that’s important.”
Jamal agreed.
“Keep the main thing the main thing,” he said. “You’ve got to find somebody who’s a friend, not just feeling butterflies in your stomach. You need somebody you can match you.”
Happily ever after: The McCaskeys have two adult children: a 29-year-old son who lives in Grayson Valley with his wife of two years, and a 27-year-old daughter who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Andrea is a retired HR professional who worked for the Inroads and Momentum programs. Jamal is a retired Deputy Chief of the Birmingham Police Department. He now works in real estate.
“You Had Me at Hello’’ highlights married couples and the love that binds them. If you would like to be considered for a future “Hello’’ column, or know someone, please send nominations to editor@birminghamtimes.com. Include the couple’s name, contact number(s) and what makes their love story unique.
