Dan and Sophie Trupin have been married for sixty-five years. Dan, ninety-two, was a lawyer for many years, and Sophie, ninety-two, wrote a book about growing up in the West. They've lived in Berkeley for twenty-three years and just recently moved to a retirement home because Dan was mugged twice last year and fell and broke his hip. They're committed to politics and social causes, and have two children, three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

"The first night we met," explains Sophie, "was at his brother's home, where his brother and his wife and Danny and I played bridge. He and I were partners, and he was the lousiest bridge player I'd ever known. But he had an open face, he was handsome, and he had prospects. He was a law clerk and was going to be opening his own office soon. Of course I'd had my heart broken a couple of times by then, like most girls my age. You know, life isn't a bowl of cherries for anybody. I guess I was too headstrong and obstinate--I still am. But I thought Danny was a nice guy. "

"Well, that night I had a date with another dame," Dan continues. "And for the first and only time in my life, I--what's the term? I stood her up. I was a cad and I didn't keep the appointment. I remained with Sophie the whole evening at my brother's home. I must have been fascinated with her. Her countenance was pristine, sweet and pure. She was flat chested like an iron board."

"Yeah, I used to think of myself as pretty," says Sophie. "Anybody can be pretty, but I'm much more than pretty--I'm bright, I'm witty. But I must have been pretty because that's the first thing they say, ÔShe's pretty.' If she Ôs not pretty then forget it."

"What the hell else do you notice the first time?" asks Dan.

"We started going out," Sophie continues, unperturbed. "We went to the movies and out for ice cream, that sort of thing. When I realized that I really cared for him, he told me that he couldn't marry me because he didn't have enough money to set up a house and open up a law office. So I says to him, ÔI'm not going to play house; either I'm married or I'm not.' So I went back home to Chicago. I corresponded with Danny, and tried to date other fellas, but I couldn't stop thinking about him. I guess I really cared about the bum. A year later I returned to New York and we married.

"I don't know that I really knew him too well at that time, or that he knew me. I had been raised in a generation where all the girls read romantic novels and you always projected yourself onto the heroine. You never thought of your future husband as being anything other than perfect; despite the fact that our fathers and brothers were not perfect, we still expected our husbands to be.

"I think I was disappointed in the beginning with Danny. I think most women of my generation expected the man to take over. It was thought that the woman would have an influence, but it would be the iron-fist-in-the-velvet-glove way. We'd never come out directly. We'd try to make the man believe his ideas were his, not ours. I think as women we are born with a sense that we need to make the man feel that he knows more than we do. So the woman pretends that she doesn't know things and takes a back seat, because she needs to fulfill her need for a home and family.

"Danny made most of the decisions in our marriage. I would present all my arguments and my logic about something, but eventually I'd go his way. Some of his decisions were disasters, as a matter of fact--not that mine wouldn't have been, too. Danny had a very strong way of pushing and I'd just give in, and this was hard for me because I'm a definite person and I have strong feelings about things. Our different ways of seeing the world did cause some friction."

"Let me tell you a story," Dan interrupts. "Shortly after we were married--it must have been a matter of weeks, or days--we had gone to visit my brother who lived in Brooklyn. I pressed the buzzer on his door once, and I was a little impatient so I pressed it a second time. Well Sophie resented my impatience and thought I was disturbing people unnecessarily. We had been married ten days then and she slapped my face! This caused me, momentarily at least, to reassess my status vis-a -vis, you know, the relationship. Symbolically, it was a devastating blow to me. This was the beginning of something. As a matter of fact, it turned out that this kind of intolerance and impatience has permeated and prevailed our whole relationship. But it does not go to the essence of what we mean to each other."

"Just because we liked each other," Sophie adds, "didn't mean that we agreed on everything and that we didn't fight."

"On everything!" he says. "Oh boy!"

"But," she continues, "I think that if people are from the same cookie cutter, it must be awfully dull."

"We have the most wild eruptions over the the most trivial incidents," explains Dan. "The spelling of a word, ugh! The definition of chicken bone versus drumstick. This almost tore us apart once. We had to go to a consultant to get back on an even keel."

"Well," says Sophie, "because I am volatile and opinionated and have to express myself, we have fights. The neighbors say that we are the noisiest people in the world. But we're the only couple here; the other people are all single. If you live alone, who are you going to shout at? The walls? Of course we're noisy, we have one another to shout at. I am what I am, and if I can't express myself and make some noise, it makes for fighting, it makes for crying, it makes for yelling and screaming and being very frustrated and saying I'm going to leave. But basically that's why we've stayed together, because we allow ourselves to be ourselves, which isn't very civilized perhaps, but this is who we are."

"Now the question of the chicken legs," Dan continues, "we still haven't resolved that. I know I'm right. She got mad because she interpreted it as a lack of confidence in her ability, and she had had all this experience with the forstinking chickens on the farm growing up. You know, it's just nonsense, this kind of disagreement, and how the hell do you resolve that kind of thing? What difference does it make?"

"Why should it be important to me," Sophie interjects, "that he has to see that I know the anatomy of a chicken? To me it seems so unreasonable, and then I realize that I'm unreasonable, too. If he can't see it, he can't see it. Why is it so important to me that he see it from my viewpoint? I don't know.

"You know, it's hard to find a suitable mate," Sophie continues. "People used to say you made your bed, now lie in it. Well, people today, they don't like to lie in lumpy beds, so they get out and try another bed. Why not? I mean marriage is hit or miss. It's very difficult to mesh your life with someone else's because we have our own personalities and needs.

"Danny and I got very political in the sixties, and because I was the homemaker, raising our two children, Danny got to be the one who was away a lot. And I'd resent it sometimes, even though he was trying to make the world a better place. But he had to do what he had to do. We've always been very passionate people. Anger, love, hate, disappointment, agreement--everything's passion to us. It's only people who you care about that you wish were different or more understanding."

"Well it's been sixty years," says Dan, "and a very difficult endurance contest. I finally made it and it wasn't easy. When you're living with the same woman for sixty years, the definitions of monotony and monogamy blur."

"Well," adds Sophie, "I believe that men make laws that go against our nature. Men are not monogamous. Women are, by nature. A realistic woman accepts the fact that men are not monogamous. And the bright woman will hang onto her husband, and she'll turn away and pretend she doesn't see that he stays late at the office for different reasons than he says."

"That's the bright woman, Sophie?" asks Dan incredulously.

"And," says Sophie, "she continues to be a Mrs. and has status, a position among her peers, and her husband does what comes naturally."

"Oh, Sophie......," he says, shaking his head.

"So, anyway," she says confidently, "this has been my observation."

"I must confess," says Dan, "she's the only woman I've ever known in my whole life, and that's why I can kid her and say, ÔI have more trouble with you than any woman I've ever slept with.' And it's literally true. The only woman I've had a total immersion experience with is Sophie."

"Do you want to know if sex continues?" asks Sophie matter of factly. "Yes, sex continues, don't worry about that. As a matter of fact, when a woman no longer has to worry about being pregnant she's released from a tremendous responsibility."

"Look," Dan admits confidentially, "sexually, at ninety-two you don't even get an erection, let me tell you. When you get to be ninety-two, be prepared. I don't have to tell you about the decline. There's a decline in your need for food, and there's a decline in your need for sex. So whatever it was, X number of times a week, then there's X number of times a month, then it's an annual celebration, and then after a while it's a centennial celebration. Okay?"

"I think our culture puts too much emphasis on age, anyway," adds Sophie. "There are three things that we should avoid as we get older: the mirror, the scale, and the calendar. I find them awfully depressing. It's our culture that makes us think negatively about growing older. It's inevitable, so why don't we learn to enjoy it and say, ÔWell, we have less years to suffer, less time to make mistakes."

"If Sophie goes first," says Dan, " I will be the loneliest man on earth. This I can tell you. When Sophie goes away, and she doesn't do it anymore, but she used to for two or three days, I never went out in the evening. I didn't participate in any activity. I stayed home. I read and went to bed early. I was just a lonely man, and if Sophie ever leaves me this would be my fate, my destiny."

"Yes," she agrees, "as we get older we begin to find that time is running out. So instead of saying that we're bored with one another and our marriage is stale, it's just the reverse. We worry about trying to extend our period together."

"We don't have to resolve anything," he says. "We love each other. We're devoted to each other. That's it; we don't fight about nothing. There's nothing to fight about."