CAMBRIDGE – After adjusting his cap, Robert Bunker Sr. turned and asked “Mother” if she was holding on tight as he fired up their all-terrain vehicle on a recent day.

He twisted the throttle and the vehicle lurched forward. “Here we go,” Bunker, 96, shouted to his wife, Lula Bunker, 97, who was clutching his belt for support on the vehicle.

Even during this short spin around the yard, the cold scrubbed their cheeks red, but the wide smiles on their faces revealed their enjoyment.

In fact, they’ve done few things apart since they took their wedding vows on New Year’s Eve 75 years ago.

“About the only time we’ve been apart is when he was on jury duty and one time he went on a flying trip with the boys to Florida and back,” said Lula, dressed in a Christmas vest that highlighted her gray hair, during a recent interview.

Still sweethearts, the couple kiss often. “She’s been in my arms a lot of times,” Robert said.

With their eyes on one another as they talked, the couple recalled how their romance began. Lula said both had attended a box social where Robert bought her a box and they ate the contents. At the time, the 18-year-old Lula was teaching at a school next door to Robert’s home in Harmony.

Marriage would come a few years later, after Robert worked a stint at a Packard assembly plant in Detroit, Mich.

Upon his return home, Robert said, he and “Mother” married, bought a blacksmith shop that they converted into a garage, and settled in Cambridge.

Lula was a clerical worker for a few years at a local mill and kept the records for the garage while raising the couple’s three children: Marita Bunker Farrar of Ripley, Robert Bunker Jr. of Cambridge and the late Elizabeth Bunker Folsom.

Money was tight and life was trying during those early years, but the couple remained best friends. “Mother and I never had many ups and downs,” Robert said.

After the children left the nest, the couple continued to maintain their 10-room home, the former Island House Hotel. They live there today, and Lula continues to keep it tidy and homey.

Other than hearing loss, both are in good health for their ages. “After Mother takes her hearing aid out for the night, I have to holler to make her hear me,” Robert said with a wide grin. Her hearing may be bad, but Lula pointed out she has no difficulty reading and playing cards without her glasses.

Family members believe the couple’s active and adventurous lifestyle has helped preserve their health and create a happy marriage.

“We just lived a normal life,” Robert said.

Lula said she and her husband just “agreed to agree” over the years. They cultivated their mutual interests, enjoying summers at the camp they built on Moose Pond in Hartland, flying the skies in aircraft Robert piloted, and up until a few years ago traveling the state on snowmobiles.

Only in recent years has the couple scaled down their active lifestyle.

“We’re getting old, decrepit and frazzled,” Lula said. Still, their resilience shows. Recently Lula fell while adjusting outdoor Christmas lights and suffered two black eyes and a welt on her head, but no bones were broken and she is still game for brisk rides on the ATV.

The couple said they enjoy visits from their seven grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. And they savor nightly Liverpool rummy card games played with family and friends, which is how they intend to spend their anniversary. Summers are spent camping on a nearby 200-acre woodlot they own, which they enjoy exploring with their ATV.

“Did I ever tell you to slow down?” Lula asked.

“Yes, lots of times,” Robert replied.

Other than a sometimes heavy hand on the throttle, Robert said, he has had few vices in his life. “Oh, I occasionally smoked over the years, but I never became addicted,” he said. He also enjoys a daily drink of brandy and uses so much salt that his french fries turn white.

Lula, on the other hand, never smoked and avoids alcoholic beverages. She does enjoy butter on most foods, including cookies. Like her husband, she takes a daily aspirin.

“We’re in good condition for the shape we’re in,” Lula joked.

The couple never had the time or money for a honeymoon, but have made up for it over the years. “We’ve been taking one every year since,” Lula said.

Would they do it over again if they had their lives to relive? “Why sure, I’d try to do a better job than I did the last time,” Lula said.

And, Robert replied, “Certainly, if I could get the same woman.”