I just finished a story about two Bakersfield couples who are celebrating their 70th wedding anniversaries. Yep, there are people out there who can last that long, unlike Brit and K-Fed.

They are Adeline and Chris Stumbaugh and Margaret and Charles Andreoli. (I don't know why, but Mr. Stumbaugh looks a whole lot like an old-time Big Band musician in the photo). These huge anniversaries must be a fairly recent phenomenon as history goes. I figure it's due to: 1) long life expectancy 2) the common trend of early marriage up until a few decades ago  and 3) perhaps the stick-to-it attitude of "The Greatest Generation."

What do you think?

Meanwhile, here's the couples' "how they met" stories. I love those.

Adeline, 90, and Chris, 93, married New Year’s Day 1937.
They lived in neighboring Los Angeles suburbs. Adeline said she met her future husband while on a blind date with her twin sister Isabel and her boyfriend.
“I thought he had pretty hair,” Adeline said. “I thought he was pretty nice as he wasn’t loud and pushy.”
When asked about his first impression of the girl, Chris, never much of a talker, shook his hand as if jittery.
He said “nervous.”
They married in an Episcopal church in Los Angeles, Adeline wearing the gown her sister wore when she married her boyfriend.
The obvious question: What’s the secret to 70 years?
“We just live for one day to the other and be as kind as we could,” Adeline said. “We never go to bed angry.”

Margaret and Charles Andreoli, 94 and 93 respectively, had a romantic courtship.
In May 1935, Margaret and a friend went down to the Needles, Calif. depot to people-watch as the trains came in, the only entertainment in town.
“Along came these two fellas,” she said. “One was tall and skinny, one was short, but very good-looking.”
“I thought she was gorgeous,” Charles recalled.
Margaret’s friend introduced her to Charles, who was a railroad employee, and his companion.
Two days later, Margaret’s friend said Charles wanted a date.
“Who in the world is Charlie Andreoli?” Margaret asked.
You met him the other night at the depot, the friend said.
Margaret asked, the tall one or the short one?
The short one.
He was too short, Margaret recalled saying. “‘I’ve never gone out with anyone that short.’”
But all the girls were dying to go out with him, her friend pressed. And he had a job.
“I said, ‘All right, this one time,’” Margaret recalled. “Never got rid of him.”
They were married a year later in a simple ceremony at Margaret’s childhood home.

Do you have a great "how we met" story to tell? Spill it!

-- Shellie Branco