CEREMONY HONORS SENIORS AS ASSETS TO CITY.

Byline: Dominic Berbeo Staff Writer

In health-crazed California, almost everyone has a strategy for staying healthy, whether it's working out or keeping a wholesome diet.

But Ben Levinson's plan probably is better than most. After all, he is 104.

``Lots of wine, lots of women, and lots of song,'' said the World War I veteran during a city-sponsored luncheon Tuesday in Los Feliz to honor the elderly.

Levinson was the oldest of some 160 seniors over 90 who attended, including Star Mitchell, 103, and Anna Jackson and Marie West, both 102.

Since 1985, the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks has sponsored an annual celebration to honor seniors as important community assets.

Levinson, born in 1895, says he still drives his own car. He also enjoys traveling and is just two states short of visiting all 50.

The World War I veteran said that looking back on life, the things he's seen are enough to fill a volume of encyclopedias. He remembers hearing adults talk about the Spanish-American War at the turn of the century, which resulted in Spain losing Cuba and ceding Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States.

With a strain in his expression, Levinson also recalled the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, in which 1,503 people perished at sea and radio was put to one of its earliest tests as the cutting-edge source of news.

Star Mitchell of Van Nuys, born in 1897, said she came to California in 1940 after her husband died and her son joined the military service.

``I had a very unhappy year,'' she pensively recalls. ``That's when I decided to leave Massachusetts and come to California to make a new start.

``They told me California was like a paradise,'' Mitchell recalls, ``and when I came I found out it really was.''

Over the past 44 years, the city and its landscape have changed dramatically, she recalled.

``The San Fernando Valley was pretty much farmland. It wasn't as sophisticated as it is now,'' she said, adding that there were mostly dirt roads then, and no freeways cutting through the area.

Now a great-great grandmother, Mitchell says she enjoys every day of life, but insisted she has no secret for longevity.

``I really don't know why I'm so healthy,'' she said. ``I think it was just meant for me to live this long and there's nothing in particular that I did that I can say kept me fit.''

And while some of the seniors at Tuesday's luncheon remembered their early years with fondness, Levinson took it all in stride with a statement few of us will ever get the chance to repeat.

``Ah,'' he said with a sly grin, ``to be 100 again.''

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Photo: From left, Francis Lepkowsky, 99, Henry Rabow, 100, and Star Mitchell, 103, are some old-timers from the Valley honored recently.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer