SECRET TO A 62-YEAR MARRIAGE
Tucson, Arizona
Tuesday, 27 May 2003
Ernesto Portillo Jr.
Nearly every morning, as long as Teresa Castellanos feels up to it, she and her husband, Alex, leave their Menlo Park home, drive south to a park near South Mission Road and West Ajo Way, pick up a cup of coffee along the way and sit down in the relative solitude to read the newspaper.
She sips her java while he reads to her. She's blind from glaucoma.
"He reads me the headlines, and if I like them, I'll tell him to read me the story," said Teresa Castellanos, 91.
And he does happily.
Such is the relationship between this couple, married for 62 years and living on North Grande Avenue for more than 50 years.
Still in love, they adhere to a philosophy that has made their marriage work and last.
"He worked and I talked," she said during an interview from their living room, decorated with her prized collection of cobalt blue glass vessels and vases.
He laughed at hearing her spill their secret, but he didn't dispute it. It's a recipe they continue to use.
They've grown old together, taking the good with the bad, learning to put up with each other's idiosyncrasies, and promising not to let the little things get in the way of the big things.
While she depends on her husband for much these days, she doesn't appear to have lost her feisty strength or her faith.
"I still believe that some of my eyesight will return," said Teresa, who still longs to read books and sew clothes after losing her eyesight about five years ago. "It's awfully hard to let go."
Most of us can only imagine, but Alex doesn't allow his wife to cling to thoughts of what was or what could have been. They're too busy.
Alex, a retired barber and musician, continues to cut hair and play his instruments. She stays home and listens to books on tape, preferably murder mysteries and romance.
He drives to the homes of longtime customers who can't come to him and clips their hair for $6, the same price he charged at his former barbershop across the street from Pueblo High School - the last of the three shops he owned. He cut hair for nearly 50 years on the South Side, beginning in 1948, when the couple and their three children arrived from Douglas.
Alex also played the saxophone and other reed instruments for Latino orchestras and combos over the years. He still plays nine instruments, including a silver flute that he picked up and played - the classic torch song "Stormy Weather" - while Teresa talked.
When Alex was cutting hair during the week and playing dances on the weekends, Teresa busied herself at home with her children and 14 grandchildren. She also kept the businesses' books and looked out for other business opportunities.
"After we arrived, we considered whether to buy a car or a barbershop," she recalled. "We bought a barbershop because the shop would give us the car. A car would not give us a shop."
So while he cut hair for someone else, she scouted for a shop. They found their first one on South Sixth Avenue.
He worked; she talked.
It's still a winning combination.
