Seniors Renew Vows, Cut a Rug on Their Fair Day

She was “just a nice gal” with long, pretty hair, splashing in an L.A. swimming pool.

He was the “pretty good guy” who asked for her phone number. He must have been good enough, because she gave it to him. And he used it, even though it required a trip on the cross-town trolley to visit.

That was 1930. Less than a year later they were married.

And on the couple’s 23rd annual visit to the Ventura County Fair on Tuesday, Kathryn and John Mihld, married 68 years, took the chance to renew their love, though by now they hardly need the blessing.

“We think alike,” said 86-year-old Kathryn Mihld, described by her husband as the “nice gal” with the long hair.

“We’ve been married so long everything comes natural,” said John Mihld, 88, the “pretty good guy.”

Surrounded by midway sounds, hot dog on a stick stands and fresh potato chip booths, the Ventura pair, and dozens of other couples, took seats along an aisle before a wooden bower topped with a temporary but elegant frieze of flowers to take part in a yearly marriage renewal.

There, decades after that original blessing, they received another. And, Kathryn Mihld said, they will do it each year as long as they can still make it through the fair’s grounds.

On Tuesday, the fair’s Senior Citizens Day, motorized wheelchairs and walkers owned the main drag. The accordion notes of “We’ve Only Just Begun” chimed through the air. And couples such as John and Mary Cimino cut a rug--just as they did when they met at an Air Force dance 57 years ago.

“From that day on, he didn’t leave me alone,” Mary Cimino said.

And while Ynez Rodriguez, 87, a Ventura “native daughter,” stayed off the dance floor Tuesday, she remembered the years long ago when she danced at a bathhouse by the Ventura Pier and visited the fair.

“There are so many more people now,” she said. “We used to ride on the rides, the Ferris wheel, the merry-go-round. These new ones are only for the young kids.”

And 93-year-old Vern Croddy, almost as old as God, according to his spring-chicken friend, 70-year-old Paul Boog, declined to dance as a favor to the folks on the floor.

“I’m very light on my feet,” he said. “I don’t want to show everybody up.”

Ted and Mimi Luft, who interrupted each other’s sentences like a Vaudeville team and shared a piece of “wedding” cake, met on a blind date 50 years ago. He was her aunt’s milkman. Neither wanted to go--Ted had been burned before--but after only a day, both were smitten.

“We walked on the boardwalk and talked a lot,” she said. “He claims he took me for dinner . . . “

“We had a wobbly table,” he said. “I put an oyster under the leg . . . “

“I felt so sorry for him, I had to fall in love.”

A month later the former Brooklynites were married. This year, on their first trip to renew their vows--despite the fact they have been eligible since their 40th anniversary--the two teased each other with 50 years of collected affection.

“This is a blessing,” cracked Ted Luft. “We need all the help we can get.”