VALENTINE’S DAY 1990: <i> A Story of Love in the San Gabriel Valley</i> : Seniors’ Passion for Trucking Put a True Love Story in Gear

The setting was the Duarte Senior Citizen Center.

The subject was long-distance trucking.

The outcome was true love.

Becky and Bob McIntire of Monrovia, both retired truck drivers with a passion for driving across country, met nearly two years ago at the center. Two months later, they hopped in a station wagon, drove to Las Vegas and got married.

“We promised each other a honeymoon that would never end,” said Bob, 75. “The secret is I’m in love with her and she is in love with me.”

They haven’t let health problems interfere. Although Bob has required a portable oxygen tank for the last five years, Becky says she doesn’t notice.

“I don’t even see it,” she said. “We just don’t let it get in the way. . . . Like when we go dancing, we just find a corner for the oxygen tank and dance around it.”

When they met, both had been divorced for 12 years. Becky, 65, was living with her youngest daughter in Duarte, and says she had sworn off men after her marriage broke up. Bob was living alone in Monrovia after a divorce from his wife of 40 years.

But when they met in March, 1988 they saw a chance for a fresh start. “After the divorce I said the hell with marriage, it’s not for me,” Bob said. “But there was something about Becky that brought back the life in me.”

“I knew from the beginning that he was a very kind and gentle man,” Becky said. “He is unlike anyone else.”

It all began when Bob and two of his friends decided one day to go to the Duarte Senior Citizen Center.

“A bunch of us were sitting around the table, just talking, and Bob came over and sat down with us,” Becky recalled. “When we started talking, we noticed that we both had a great interest in trucks.”

For Bob, however, the attraction was much more than a shared interest in semis. “I liked what I saw,” he said with a chuckle.

A few days later, he went back to the center to ask Becky out.

“He gave me a single red rose and asked me out to dinner,” Becky said. “I had no idea he was going to do this. . . . It was a complete shock.”

They were married on May 16, 1988, and it was a wedding to remember, considering that Bob had forgotten the wedding ring and left his suitcase at home.

“I had to buy a pair of pants to get married,” Bob said. “And we had to use a piece of string instead of a ring. . . . Despite it all, we had a ball.”

Peggy Borsellino, director of the senior center, describes the McIntires as “a very happy, upbeat and warm couple.”

“It is so nice to see them enjoying life, when so many others have stopped,” she said. “They really look like they’re in love--holding hands, sneaking a kiss now and then.”

Borsellino said the center is a gathering place, social hub and lunch stop for 40 to 50 senior citizens who drop by on weekdays. She said that as far as she knows the McIntires, the “newlyweds” of the center, are the first to marry after meeting there. More typically, she said, singles who frequent the center say they “just don’t want to start over again.”

The McIntires, however, say they are glad they got the chance. “Those other guys are cowards,” Bob said. “There are so many women here. Why don’t they ask them out and have fun?

“I don’t know what would have happened to me if I didn’t meet Becky,” he continued. “I would be a real mess.”

The McIntires are planning to drive to Nebraska in March for Bob’s high school reunion.

“I want to show off Becky to all my old friends,” Bob said. “I’m very proud of her.”

Becky, meanwhile, says there are several secrets to a happy marriage.

“The trouble with people is that they just don’t laugh enough,” she said. “Laughing takes care of your insides. . . . It’s the best thing in the world. We make each other laugh, and that’s very special.”

Also, she said, “we’re always holding hands. Whenever we have an argument, we just hold hands until we cool off.”

Finally, there is an element of romantic thoughtfulness.

“There are still times that Bob goes to our back yard and picks some roses for me,” Becky said. “He doesn’t do it all the time, just once in a while, and that’s what makes it special.”