City Lights:

As I noted in a previous column, I have a certain skepticism about self-help books. Every major bookstore has shelves weighed down with volumes about the secret to happiness, success, money and any number of goals. But I always suspect the world is much simpler than those Oprah-endorsed tracts make it out to be, and that life operates under a few basic rules — one of which is that, positive thinking aside, everything doesn’t always go according to plan.

Marriage is no exception. In this age when so many unions end in divorce, a slew of books fill the bestseller list offering tips on navigating the ins and outs of romance. Their titles alone imply how convoluted they are — “He’s Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys” was followed by the even more tongue-twisting sequel “Be Honest — You’re Not That Into Him Either: Raise Your Standards and Reach for the Love You Deserve.”

I had those tomes in mind when I went to visit Ted and Emma Raddish, a Huntington Beach couple who will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary this August. The Raddishes’ son-in-law Chris Chadwick called me shortly before the pair had an early anniversary party at the Rancho Huntington Mobile Park on Saturday. As a bachelor, I figured I could learn more from them than from the latest hot volume at Borders.

Ted and Emma, who moved to Huntington Beach when they retired 21 years ago, grew up in an era when marriage wasn’t the fussed-over institution it is today. The two, whose parents both emigrated from Serbia, met at a roller-skating rink in the 1930s — which, Chadwick explained to me, was the main entertainment for many during the Depression — and married Aug. 31, 1939, the day before Germany invaded Poland.

As Emma put it: “It was the day before war started in Europe.”

Added Ted: “And then we started our own.”

Like most couples I’ve known who have been together for decades, Ted, 97, and Emma, 91, have a sense of humor about their relationship — and they often finish or clarify each other’s sentences. When I asked what their key was to sustaining a long marriage, Ted said, “Don’t argue with your wife, because she’s always right.” But Emma had a more serious take on it. “We don’t argue,” she said. “What good is arguing? He listens to what I have to say. I listen to what he has to say. And then we try to piece it together.”

For the Raddishes, and plenty of others from their generation, marriage was more about survival than romance. They grew up in a hardscrabble world where money was scarce and neighbors looked out for each other, and making a living wasn’t always about carefully sculpting a career; among Ted’s early jobs were mining coal and delivering bootleg whiskey. Neither went to college, and Ted’s education ended with the eighth grade.

Their dream, though, was to create a better life for their children. The Raddishes’ three daughters all graduated from college — working their way through — and went on to become an accountant, a teacher and a pediatrician. The couple eventually launched a successful upholstery business in Los Angeles and garnered enough wealth to travel around the world after they retired.

When I asked Emma what the best part of marriage was for her, she didn’t hesitate: “Companionship, of course. And having three beautiful girls. All college graduates.”

It’s an impressive track record for any couple — especially one who started from practically nothing. Congratulations, Ted and Emma, and I’ll be thinking of you Aug. 31.

City Editor MICHAEL MILLER can be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at [email protected] .