Previously in "Curiouser": Lisa Pyche, whose teenage son P.J. had been killed by a drunken driver.
She was curious about: What it's like to be part of a longtime married couple.
"I'm only 88," says Andy Neborak, husband of Anna, 89. "She likes younger men."
"Oh, he'll be 89 in a couple of days!" she says. The couple sits in the auditorium of the city-run Barksdale Senior Center in West Tampa. Anna leads the conversation, Andy only speaking up when he's got a good quip or a word of wisdom. She calls him "the light of my life. I love being married. It's a wonderful thing." She then tells the story of how they met in Philadelphia in the late '60s, at a weekly dance held by a single-parent organization.
She remembers her first thought upon seeing him: "Look at that nice man." Her friend pushed her to talk to him, but she was embarrassed. Anna walked by him quickly and only managed to say hello, then took refuge in the bathroom.
"I couldn't remember if I had danced with her the week before, or —" Andy says. "A man had a field day there! There was at least 10 women to every man."
When Anna returned from the powder room, her nice-looking man wasn't to be found. She figured that was the end of that. But within a few minutes, she felt a tap on her shoulder and he asked her to dance.
"We've been dancing ever since," Anna says, smiling, acknowledging that they've been "slowing down a little bit now." The couple of miles from Barksdale to their Seminole Heights home is just too far. They've given up square dancing because the center only offers it at night, and they don't like to drive in the dark anymore. "We can't see good at our age." But they continue to ballroom dance and line dance. In addition to dancing, they play cards, bingo and Bunco. "I often wonder if we didn't have Barksdale what we would do."
They moved to Florida in 1977 after Andy retired from 32 years with the United States Post Office. "That's 30 years ago, isn't it?" Anna says.
"Every time we mention to young people how we lived during 'our day' they don't want to hear about it," Andy says. A World War II veteran, he spent 15 months in Germany during the Battle of the Bulge and suffered only a cut above his eye.
Anna remembers finding her mother crying because the family had no money for food and how embarrassed she was when Anna came back from the grocer with a handout. "People were proud then. Now people want gimme-gimme for free."
Andy says, "It's a different ballgame now. Each generation tries to do more for their kids, but that can spoil them too much. And that's no good." Not that they're stuck in the past: Anna loves the Internet for its instant answers to her constant questions, not to mention the games online. The couple takes cruises with friends and bus tours up the East Coast to visit children and grandchildren.
When the Neboraks first met, they were both in their 40s with two sons apiece. Anna's were grown; Andy's were just leaving the house. Just a few years earlier, they'd each lost their significant others to bad health and heredity. Anna's first husband died from a heart attack. "In those years, we cooked with lard and ate bacon," she says. "Growing up during the Depression, you ate whatever was available," Andy adds.
His first wife had high blood pressure and died at 45. Both spouses had parents who'd died young of the exact ailments their children had. "We both had it tough. He had a sick wife, I had a sick husband. We often sit and talk about it," Anna says.
But the pair have stayed in good health because of their active lives. Back when Anna was in school, her mother would give her 15 cents to take the bus "quite a distance aways." But she pocketed the money or spent it on nylons and walked to and from school instead. After they got married, they took long walks, even in the frozen winter. "We were the only fools out!" says Andy, an avid baseball player in his youth who stayed involved by playing in senior neighborhood leagues. Anna, who also belongs to Shapes, believes it's the exercise that has kept them vital. "We're fortunate. We can tolerate a pain here and there. It's to be expected."
But their health isn't the only thing that takes effort. "I think people don't try hard enough to make marriage work," Anna says. "I always think, 'If I please him, he'll please me.' People today give up and run." Andy says it can't be one-sided in this world of twos. Anna hopes for another 20 years together.
"You'll have to push me in a stroller!" he says.
Anna's fine with that. She's counting on them reaching 100 together, no matter how they get there.
Who Anna and Andy are curious about: Someone living with an illness or someone who's lived to the age of 100. In the next "Curiouser," I find out.
This article appears in Sep 19-25, 2007.
