Most people wish they could be as happy as Gil and Blanche DeMoor.

They are both legally blind, the vision loss coming later in life. Blanche spends her days tethered to an oxygen tank. Yet the DeMoors say they are lucky. After all, they will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary together next Tuesday, Sept. 2.

"My glass is always half full," said Blanche. "The only thing I get upset about is sickness. Anything else will take care of itself. Time takes care of all things. We should know, we're old enough!"

The couple, who have lived on Rock Ridge Road since 1954, are known for their quick witted humor, say family and friends.

Even though Gil, 94, and Blanche, 93, no longer drive, they leave the house almost every day, going shopping, visiting or eating out with friends, neighbors and family.

Gil serves on the Andover Commission on Disabilities and swims laps every weekday morning at the Andover/North Andover YMCA. He said he swims 16 laps every day, "with rests in between."

"He contributes a lot, we do pick his brains," said Julie Pike, a member of the Commission on Disabilities, who picks up Gil for meetings.

Pike has known the DeMoors for years, she said, and they both attend South Church on Central Street.

"I just enjoy being with them, they both put a smile on your face," she said. "You never know what's coming. You can say something straight, and one of them will come back with something comical. They just roll with the punches; they're just a good couple to be around."

Gil, an Everett native, and Blanche, a Medford native, met in 1933, two weeks before Blanche's 18th birthday.

Blanche's mother and a group of friends decided to go on a picnic during the height of the Depression, and carpooled, said Blanche. One of the stops was to pick up Gil's sister.

"We drove up to the house, and sitting on the steps was this kid," she said with a chuckle.

He ran upstairs, grabbed his bathing suit, and decided to join the party. They had "a marvelous time," that day, swimming at Lynn beach, said Blanche.

"Afterwards, he said, 'Can I call you sometime?' And I said 'Of course'," said Blanche.

The couple's next date was to a social at a dance hall in Lawrence. Not being from the area, the couple took a wrong turn on the trip home and ended up in Manchester, N.H.

"These are the days without cell phones. We pulled up to my house at 2 a.m., and my mother was on the front steps, almost in tears," said Blanche with a chuckle. "From that day to this we've been together ... We've been married for 70 years, and it's been wonderful."

Although they knew they wanted to get married, Gil told Blanche they couldn't until he made $40 a week, enough to support her. They dated for another five years, and once Gil started making $40 a week, they were married Sept. 2, 1938 at the Bellingham Church in Chelsea.

"From day one, we hit it off," said Blanche, smiling. "If you can't get along with him, you can't get along with anyone."

The couple agreed that it doesn't feel like it's been 70 years, and they're still very much in love.

"Like anybody, we've had our ups and downs ... I have three words I live by: love, respect and trust," said Blanche. "People do not believe it, but we've always gotten along beautifully. Our girls will say that they've never heard a cross word between us. I guess we're not normal."

The DeMoors have two daughters, five grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Their two daughters, Norma Morava and Marilyn Fitzgerald, have organized an anniversary party for friends and family on Sept. 6.

Both children live in Andover, close to their parents, check on them often and take them grocery shopping twice a week.

"We'd be lost without them," said Gil of the family and friends who give them rides.

"We're very fortunate," agreed Blanche. "We have a lot to be thankful for."

Marilyn Fitzgerald noted that they've given to others so much in life, that now, friends and neighbors line up to help them in return.

"They're so positive. People like to be around them because they never complain. They take life as it comes," she said.

Gil has been retired for 30 years, after a career as an instrument technician for Exxon; Blanche was a stay-at-home mother and homemaker. Before she lost her eyesight, she was an avid baker and loved to sew.

In retirement, the couple has volunteered many hours, at Lawrence General Hospital, Habitat for Humanity and Red Cross blood drives. Before it closed, they used to go with a group from their church to the Danvers State Hospital, a mental institution, to play Beano with patients there. Gil was always the Beano caller, he said.

Blanche studied ballet and dance as a young girl, and earned a living dancing as a teenager in the 1930s, she said.

She made $25 a week — at the height of the Great Depression, when even her father was unemployed, she said — dancing at the RKO Theater in Boston.

"When I met Gil, I had been dancing, and had an offer to go to New York City with the Rockettes," said Blanche. "How fortunate that I turned it down, because a few months later, I met Gil. It's funny how your life can change like that."

"Look at how lucky I was," said Gil, smiling.

DeMoor one-liners

A healthy sense of humor, said Gil and Blanche DeMoor, helps them see the glass as half-full in life. The couple, age 94 and 93, will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary next week.

Here's a few of their one-liners, as told in an hour-long interview with the Townsman:

r On being legally blind and doing household chores:

"My house used to be very clean," said Blanche. "But now I don't see the dirt."

r On being legally blind and mowing the lawn.

"I have a rider mower," said Gil. "When I go out, the neighbors go in!"

r Of swimming laps at the YMCA every weekday morning, at age 94:

"I met a woman at the bank the other day, and I said 'It's Gil.' She said, 'Oh, I didn't recognize you with your clothes on!'"