She and her two friends were waiting for a bus going to Providence, and he and a buddy were in a car going in that direction.

The boys pulled over and he asked, “Do you want a ride?”

She said no, but then one of her friends said she knew the boys, so she said OK.

“The next day he called and asked me for a date,” said 92-year-old Carolyn Piscopio, sitting next to Joe Piscopio, 95, her husband of 75 years.

The Piscopios celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary on June 11.

“When we got married, his brother had been married 10 years, and we thought that was a long time,” Carolyn said. “I never thought about being married for 75 years.”

They met when they were in high school in Warwick, Rhode Island, although they went to different schools.

On their first date they – all three of them – went to a Maryland Fried Chicken restaurant.

When Joe asked Carolyn for that first date, she stipulated that her friend was coming along too.

“She came with us every single time we went out,” Carolyn said. “We called her the ‘ghost.’”

Carolyn said she liked Joe right away because he was a gentleman.

“It wasn’t for my money,” Joe said.

For Joe, it was love at first sight.

“It was my blue eyes,” Carolyn said.

As for who proposed to whom, the answer is neither.

No one got down on one knee, no grand, romantic gesture; they just knew they would get married.

“We always talked about it and just fell into it,” Carolyn said.

It was 1949. She was 18 and he was 21.

They got married at St. Catherine’s Church. She wore a three-quarter length beige lace dress with a lace and satin shoulder wrap.

He wore a suit – a brand new suit.

They honeymooned in New Hampshire.

 “When we were first married, we had nothing, no money,” Joe said. “We started with nothing and ended up doing OK.”

They had five children, four sons and one daughter. One son is deceased.

She stayed home taking care of the house and the kids, making a home for their family, and he worked, often long hours.

“I was in real estate, investing in real estate, and I had a lot of businesses,” Joe said.

“He had a restaurant and a liquor store, and he did all the work himself,” Carolyn said.

“I wasn’t home very often,” Joe said. “I worked 12 hours a day or more.”

 “But he came home every night,” Carolyn added.

The Piscopios moved to Citrus Hills in 1985 to retire and play golf.

Joe golfed for 13 years and then he had enough.

“I said, ‘Is this all there is?’ and went back into real estate with Jim Morton,” he said. “I just stopped working a couple of years ago. I got my son, Richard, to take over.”

Of the two, although they’re both outgoing, Joe has always been the social butterfly.

“I was always the instigator,” he said. “I ran the parties. I used to have dinner dances at Andre’s (now Citrus Hills Golf & Country Club Hampton Room).”

“The snowbirds would come down to play golf and the wives wouldn’t have anything to do, so he started having dinner dances – and they loved it,” Carolyn said.

“I had the dinner dances and golf tournaments, the Italian Open,” Joe said.

They moved into Grand Living at Citrus Hills retirement community about six and a half years ago, where they have an apartment.

“Everybody here, the younger people who work here, when they find out how long we’ve been married they always ask, ‘What’s your secret?’ I tell them it’s commitment and give and take,” Carolyn said. “Sometimes it’s not fun, like when he was working all the time and I had to do a lot with the house and having five kids.

“I tell them there’s always ups and downs,” she said, “so, you have to have that commitment.”

As for Joe’s secret?

“I don’t know if I have a secret. I haven’t had time to think about it,” he said. “She took care of the house while I went out and worked, and together we made a good team.”

He added, “I’d do it all over again.”

Warwick Beacon Editor’s Note; The above story,  published on the front page of the Citrus Hill Chronical on June 11 was forwarded to us by Joe Piscopio who followed in his father’s footsteps as a Warwick developer and landowner. Joe and his sister Felicia filled in a few details. Their father left school at 14 years old to help out the family of nine children, later going to develop his own enterprises.   As his sister Felicia remembers the two families would come together for Sunday dinners and some of the best times growing up. They still get together for seemingly, as Felicia describes it, almost every occasion from Thanksgiving, to Mother’s Day, birthdays and, naturally, for the 75th wedding anniversary.