By Eliza Ridgeway

Roy and Florence Eckert look like a mild-mannered pair of white-haired Los Altos seniors, but the couple has an inspiring, not so-secret-identity: 90-year-old square dancing aficionados.

And last month other members of the Spinning Wheels, Los Altos’ square dancing club, honored them with a joint birthday celebration. The party added balloons, cake and punch to the dancing, but more specially, 22 retired members of the club, who returned to celebrate the Eckerts.

“They are so cute - when they sit on the sidelines, they hold hands,” said fellow dancer Vi Schick. “They are truly soul mates, I kid you not.”

Florence was born Oct. 2, Roy on Oct. 11, in 1916.

“My father said, ‘marry an older woman,’ so I did,” Roy joked and Florence gave a good-natured sigh of exasperation. The two finish each other’s sentences, and every story comes from them as an overlapping narrative, with Roy going into lively details and Florence hauling the story back to its basics.

The Eckerts built their home on Sunkist Avenue in 1954 and have lived there ever since, while Roy circled the globe as a Pan American pilot,

They joined the Spinning Wheels beginner’s class in 1977, learning more than 90 calls, the dance moves sung out by the leader. This encyclopedic array of techniques qualified them to graduate from the Training Wheels class and join the group. More education came in the form of advanced calls, at a faster speed.

“It’s like learning to ride a bicycle,” Roy said. “You have to just keep dancing,” Florence added. “The more you dance, the more it gets embedded in your mind.”

Four couples constitute the square in a square dance, and at a hoedown dozens of couples fill the room with separate squares. A caller sings out instructions - calls - prescribing the sequence of steps that whirl the couples about the room, petticoats flying. Florence has a closet full of the crinolines, petticoats and colorful dresses that make square dancing such a timeless spectacle.

“I don’t know how these ladies do it,” said Roy, whose uniform consists of trousers and a shirt. “If the temperature gets over 70 degrees, boy, they’ve got a lot to cope with.”

“When I started I was a lot younger than I am now,” Florence said with an impish smile. “I wanted short pettipants and I loved to flip my skirt. I was young enough I didn’t care if my pants showed.”

She still has a lithe set of legs that peak out of her costume, even if the skirts don’t flip as high as they once did. The couple maintains a vigorous fitness regimen that would put a youngster to shame, including calisthenics, neighborhood walks, machines at the gym and lap swimming.

Florence surmounted a particularly difficult challenge last year. An unleashed dog knocked her down and injured her. Hampered by the resulting broken back, she spent eight months using a walker. But now, at 90, she is back on the dance floor. She credited Roy’s insistence, her own persistence and physical therapy, which she still practices every morning.

They and four other form the most vintage of Spinning Wheels’ 40 members. While membership skews towards more seasoned couples, children and younger dancers do participate. Over the decades, the Eckert’s have danced with groups across the country, looking up local clubs as they travel. They are modest about how the sport has changed for them over the years.

“We’re slowing down,” Florence said.

And why still dance? “Because it’s fun!” Florence said fervently. “It’s so much fun, and you form wonderful friendships.”

“At one time there were probably 60 square dance clubs in Santa Clara County and a hoedown almost every Saturday night,” Roy said. Many square dancers in the area come from technical backgrounds, but Roy said that the dance attracts all types of people.

“It’s the men who are reluctant,” he said. “(But) we say, ‘if you’ve got two left feet, you’ll be a fine square dancer.’”

“But once they get started, it’s the men who love it,” Florence said.

The Eckerts started dancing when a friend of theirs asked Roy to dance at the Los Altos Fourth of July picnic 30 years ago.

“He couldn’t resist her!” Florence joked. She, too, got pulled into the dance at the picnic and the rest is history.