As a member of the senior center that meets at St. John the Baptist Church in Manayunk, he was on the advantageous side of a 5-1 female-male ratio.

Clare, his wife of 35 years, had just died, and he started going there as a respite from loneliness.

"I was a zombie for about a year and half," he says. "I stayed in the house most of the time watching television till my eyeballs nearly fell out."

Fate, too, appeared to be on Tom's side. At the center he caught up with Rose Lally, whom he'd known in grade school as Rosie McGuinn.

Tom, 75, and Rose, 74, both grew up in Manayunk and attended St. John the Baptist back when it had a kindergarten-through-12th-grade school with separate classrooms for boys and girls.

They both left school early - Rose to help support the family and Tom to join the Navy. He served on a destroyer in the Pacific, and after his discharge in 1946 spent his whole career at one job - as a traffic manager for a paper plant. Loyalty to one's employer was worth something then.

By the time Tom and Rose reconnected at the senior center, Rose had been alone for 13 years, since her first husband died. She'd dated a few men, "but none were my type, and I didn't want to lead them on."

Tom apparently had the right combination. But he was on the shy side. He and Rose had about 10 dates before their first good-night kiss.

In time, he was smitten by Rose's spirit and energized by the family gatherings with her sons, daughters, 11 grandchildren (a 12th is on the way), and 28 nieces and nephews.

On Aug. 24 they were married where they met, at St. John the Baptist.

Rose's littlest granddaughters wore white, and the teenagers wore their prom dresses. The couple's friends from the senior center crowded the pews and marveled about Tom and Rose's good fortune in finding each other.

"He is the most wonderful person, and he was that way with his wife, too," Rose says. "I've been lucky to have men who are honest and full of integrity."

Tom knew he'd found a good thing, especially at his age.

"I guess people figure that, at 75, we're a little old to be getting married," he says. "But we're in pretty good shape."