LI couple recall 70 years of marriage

John Rienzo first laid eyes on the love of his life when the two were neighbors in Brooklyn, crawling around as toddlers. He swears to this day that he knew even then he would marry her.

As he tells the story, the 93-year-old laughs and looks over at his wife, Lou, 94, the former Louise Carfora of Stone Avenue, Brooklyn, as the couple sit in the living room of their apartment in a Valley Stream assisted living facility. She looks right back, laughing too.

OK, maybe he doesn't remember quite that far back. But he forgets very little else from the couple's marriage. Wednesday, John and Lou celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary, a milestone so rare it seems almost quaint these days.

But theirs is a story about a man and a woman lucky enough to be childhood playmates, wary enough as adolescents to stay away from each other and wise enough as adults to discover that in the best of marriages, partners strong enough to commit fall in love, over and over and over again.

Flashback: John and Lou are 6 and 7 years old, living a block apart from each other in Brooklyn. They're part of a local group of children, playing together each day.

Touch football, hide and seek, Johnny on a pony. "We seemed to stick together, even though I didn't like him," Lou remembers. She also remembers, as the years flew by, that John often came to her house to hang out with her brother. "He's not here for your brother," her mom warned her early on. "That boy is here for you."

John and Lou are 17 and 18 years old. And John, finally, has summoned the nerve to tell Lou how he feels. He's got a gift - a box of perfume - and a plan - a nice, secluded walk around the reservoir. "I give her the gift," he remembers, "and I say, aren't you going to kiss me?"

"I told him, no," Lou remembers, with a chuckle. She also tried, and failed, to return his gift. "I told her to keep it," John remembers. He also said he came to love her even more. "In my day, bad girls gave kisses," he said. "She was a good girl and I respected that."

John and Lou are 20 and 21. And Lou is beginning to realize that there's love there for her, too. "He was so charming and so very nice," she said. They exchange rings - she still has the one he selected for her; he still wears the ring she selected for him. And so it becomes official: They are boyfriend. And girlfriend.

"We were lucky back then," John said last week as he and Lou told the story of their courtship and marriage. "We could be friends, we could really get to know each other," Lou said. "At each step along the way, the bond grew to the point that nothing could come between us," John said. "We became inseparable, we were bonded for life."

It would take three years more before the couple decided to marry. And another year before John and Lou exchanged vows. That was in 1941, and the emcee at their reception was a just-starting-out Jackie Gleason, who came as part of the catering hall package.

The secret to a successful marriage? "Respect each other," Lou said. "Make up and kiss each other before going to bed," John said.

Couples today, they give up too soon, John and Lou said. "It's like there is no commitment for life, that from the beginning, there's an option to leave each other."

That's not for John and Lou, who sleep each night on the bed Lou selected for the couple 70 years ago.

"I wanted something pretty," Lou said. "I still love it."
  

Milestones in their romance

"I said, 'Thank you very much,' " Lou remembers.

"I said, 'Aren't you gonna give me a kiss?' " John said.

Lou said no; and tried to give the perfume back.

Going steady: "He was charming and sweet," said Lou, as the couple donned their Sunday best to walk Brooklyn's main street; or to go to the neighborhood ice cream parlor, where they would listen to Frank Sinatra.

"We would stroll along and hold hands," Lou remembers.

John remembers curfew was 9 p.m.

Longest time apart: The three years John was in the Army; he served time in the Pacific.

Best argument: "Actually, my wife calls them discussions," John said, and that came when John returned home from the Army. His youngest daughter, seeing her father in uniform at the door, asked Lou, "Is that George?" Lou shrugged it off as the child making a mistake; John said he spent months trying to figure out who George was.

Among their first meals: "Pea soup," John said. "She was used to cooking for a big family, so it was enough to feed us for a month."

First apartment: A walk-up in Brooklyn. John, who worked as a milkman, delivering on a horse-drawn carriage, earned $45 a week, enough to pay the rent. Lou's job was to decorate, which she did with a bedroom set the couple has to this day. "I went for the more decorative mirrors," she said. "They were extra." And they still look great.

The bride still remembers: Something old? "A rosary," Lou remembers. Something new? "Everything I had on was new." Something borrowed? "A handkerchief." Something blue? "The band on my garter."

And so does the groom: "She was a half-hour late and a vision of beauty when I looked up and saw her."

Advice to couple considering marriage: "When we got married, nobody ever thought about the possibility of divorce," John said. "When you get married you take an oath to each other, and then you keep it."

By the numbers: John and Lou Rienzo have two daughters, four grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.