Sometimes the simplest things lead to a lifetime of love and memories. That’s certainly what happened for Larry and Lois Mitchell.

Fifty-seven years ago, they had their first date at the Carter County Free Fair. Neither had much money at the time, so the only ride they went on was the Ferris wheel. On Saturday, the couple returned to the fair to reminisce and go for another spin.

The duo were set up as a blind date by Larry’s brother and sister-in-law. Lois knew his sister-in-law from their time together at Murray State College.

“I had just started teaching out at Springdale and had a little apartment in Ardmore,” Lois said. “So they came and picked me up and took me out to meet him.”

To put it mildly, creating a good first impression was not one of Larry’s strongest characteristics.

“He walks out of the house with his shirttail hanging out, and in those days that was a no-no,” Lois said. “Their shirt had to be tucked in with a belt on and their shoes shined. So that was something to think about.”

“I was just ahead of my time,” Larry said.

After having dinner with Larry’s family, they went to the fair. Lois said neither of them had any money. She was just starting out teaching, and he had just gotten out of the Army and was working at a gas station and going to barber school.

“So we came to the fair, and we only rode the one ride, the Ferris wheel,” she said. “We couldn’t afford anything else. We couldn’t even buy a Coke. We just walked around and looked at everything.”

Larry shared another memory of the evening.

“The story I like to tell is when we were walking through the midway Lois said those caramel apples sure smell good,” he said. “I didn’t have any money to pay for one, but she just kept on about how good they smelled. About the third or fourth time she said it, I said you wait until we walk back up there right at it, and you can get you a real good smell.”

The couple enjoyed their first date and continued to see each other. They were married on March 15 the following year.

Over the course of the following years, the Mitchells had two children and later several grandchildren. Lois’ career in education inspired some of them to get into education themselves. Their son is currently the superintendent at Dickson Public Schools, and their daughter works at the Pauls Valley Early Childhood Library. They also have a granddaughter who is a teacher.

Lois said a teaching career very much involves the entire family, and Larry helped her out several times over the years.

“The things he did for me and my class are innumerable like fixing things for my bulletin boards,” she said. “One year he made 24 halos for the Christmas program for the kids in the choir.”

The two shared their secret to a long and happy marriage.

“You want to make sure that they know you still love them,” Larry said. “One way to do that is to do for them, and just tell them I love you.”

“And he has,” Lois said. “Another thing is learning to talk to each other, and on the other end of that is listening to each other.

“If you’ve got something bothering you, you can say ‘this is what I’m thinking, now tell me what you’re thinking.’ We’ve done that lots of times with each other.”

In the 57 years since that first date, the Mitchells have never missed another county fair with the only exception they could think of being 2020 because it was cancelled by Covid.

“We rode the Ferris wheel most of the time because that was our one ride,” Lois said. “I can only think of one year when we both looked at it, then looked at each other and decided we weren’t up for going up and around.”

Larry quipped that happens with age.

“When you’re in your 20s, it’s a lot different than being in your 80s,” he said.