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Feb 14, 2008 2:25 pm US/Eastern
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South Florida Love Letters: Jack And Rita
CORAL GABLES (CBS4) ―
Marrying your high school sweetheart is a sweet thing and sometimes it lasts. Many times it does not. Then, you run into a couple like Jack and Rita, who inspire you to believe that young love can last forever.
Together since 1944, meet Jack and Rita Feins.
"She was wearing pig tails, ponytails; today, they're ponytails. I thought it was pigtails," said Jack Feins.
Rita was 16 when she met Jack, the basketball jock who was known to have many girlfriends.
"Our sweater went to one girl for three weeks and that one for four months," he added. "But everybody knew me. I was the star. I was All-State in New Jersey. Oh God!"
But cupid cured Jack for good when he met the girl in pigtails in 1944. Rita became his one and only, and before joining the Navy six months after they met, Jack visited Rita every single night.
"My mother would come to the head of the stairs and say, 'Hey Rita, I know what you're doing down there, it's time for Jack to go home,'" chuckled Rita.
They married on April 7th, 1946 without a penny to their name.
"I went to work for her father for $40 a week," Jack explained. "At that time, $40 a week was a lot." Rita interjected, "No it wasn't. It was not."
They've lived and worked together for 62 years, had children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and still can't get enough of each other.
Jack said, "We're much in love and have a wonderful marriage."
"It gets deeper and deeper as you go on. It does," said Rita.
The closeness and the not giving up when things get rough is their secret to staying together. They also found the secret of not staying mad after an argument, as happened many years ago when they had a blow out in the car on the way home from work.
Jack recalled, "We pulled up to the house. She's still in the car, and I run into the house, open the front door and I get completely undressed. She walks in and goes hysterical, and the argument ended because you can't argue when you're naked."
Beginning Thursday, people can vote for their favorite couple and decide who wins the luxury weekend getaway at the Biltmore in Coral Gables.
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