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Just one look is all it took

He left his buddies standing at the roller rink. She did the same. In May, they will have been married 67 years.

By CHANDRA BROADWATER
Published February 14, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Edmund D. Fountain] Joe Pitas, 86, kisses his wife, Helen, 86, on Tuesday in their Weeki Wachee home. The couple will celebrate their 67th wedding anniversary this May. "We had a good life," said Joe, who said the key to a good relationship is respect. It's Your Times: Share your story

WEEKI WACHEE - Joe and Helen Pitas have been together longer than apart.

Their story of love started nearly 70 years ago with one lingering look at the roller skating rink.

Joe smiles when he remembers that night. With her one good eye, Helen peers over at him as he sits in the living room chair next to her.

With a grin on her face, she looks down and smooths the skirt of her dress with fidgety hands.

They are now both 86. For more than 30 years, they have shared their modest Weeki Wachee mobile home, with grapefruit and satsuma trees in the back yard.

Neither can believe that in May it will be 67 years since their wedding day. Nor do they stop to think too much about what it will be like when one finally does leave the other.

That night so many years ago, Helen showed up for a night out with her brother, who was friends with Joe. They all lived in the same small town, South Attleboro, Mass.

Joe and Helen had gone to grade school together, where they finished the eighth grade. Helen thought he was a pest.

But the years between grade school and his older teens changed him. They changed her, too.

With just one look that night on the roller rink floor, Joe stopped goofing off with his buddies. The same for Helen. She spent all of her time with Joe.

And that's the way it is now.

In their long lives lived, so many friends and loved ones have died. Just when you get to know someone, they up and die.

They used to go dancing and visit with friends all over their little quiet neighborhood, but they hardly know anyone anymore. So they stick to a few family members they have in the area, along with their two daughters, Joan and Nancy.

Joan, 65, lives on Florida's east coast. Nancy, 60, is still up North. Their families are spread all over the country.

In the living room, where the light is good, Helen likes to sit and look at the pictures of her five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren lined up on the entertainment center. Unframed, she has them wedged between cracks in the wood so they stand up straight.

She sits in this room a lot, thinking about how grateful she is for Joe. It was scary when he had to fight prostate cancer two decades before.

When she fell and broke her ankle, after dizzy spells started happening several years ago, he refused to send her to a nursing home for rehabilitation. He did the same when she had her hip replaced and when she was treated for colon cancer.

He will tell you what he told the doctors who insisted he send her away: "Hell no. She's coming home with me."

It's because of her hip that Helen can't bend over. When they do housework, she wipes off the counters and does the laundry. He, with his still-sturdy athletic build, takes care of anything near the floor.

Helen likes to help him whenever she can, especially since he does so much of the cooking and cleaning. When they polish the furniture, he places the chairs on top of the table so she can make them shine.

While they clean, the two reminisce about trips they took all over the country in the motor home Joe built. It was an old mail truck the handyman converted and equipped with a bed and small kitchen.

They went to Mexico and Canada and just about every place in between. It was on one of those trips that they discovered Weeki Wachee.

To this day, they still haven't made it to two states: Washington and Oregon. Whether they get there anytime soon doesn't really matter.

Joe and Helen are just happy they've been anywhere, and always together.

Chandra Broadwater can be reached at cbroadwater@sptimes.com or 352 848-1432.

[Last modified February 13, 2007, 22:34:07]