The fun is mandatory

Deepa Bharath

Bruce and Bobbie Hedrick went on their first date in Pasadena 54

years ago.

He was an engineering student at Caltech. She had just started off

with a job at a bank.

They were set to go to a barnyard dance.

Bruce showed up in a two-ton truck with a lot of guys and girls in

the back.

“I think you even broke a few branches off a parkway tree,” Bobbie

recalled with a laugh. “I took one look at that truck and I said to

myself, ‘Holy cow! I’ve never been picked up by a truck that big

before!’”

Two years after that heady date, the couple were married at the

County Courthouse in Las Vegas.

Nine years later, they bought a house on a small cul-de-sac in the

College Park area. They’ve lived there ever since and have loved

every minute of it.

Bruce, 76, and Bobbie, 73, are also star volunteers for the Costa

Mesa Police Department. They’ve been at it for five years now.

Bobbie won the department’s Volunteer of the Year Award two years

ago. Bruce earned it this year.

“She beat me to it,” he said.

Bobbie works in the main station doing paperwork for the traffic

department, while Bruce works out of the Westside substation fixing

tickets and driving around town looking for parking and other

violations.

“Mine’s a routine job,” he said. “I mostly look for graffiti and

mattresses in the alley.”

The graffiti was worse five years ago than it is now, Bruce said.

“I remember there was quite a lot of graffiti in the Mission and

Mendoza area,” he said. “Now most of it’s been cleaned up.”

As part of a police department drive, he walked those streets

distributing fliers to residents, telling them that they could

anonymously turn in miscreants responsible for graffiti in their

area.

“It must have worked pretty well,” Bruce said.

JOB SATISFACTION

He says he enjoys working with the other seniors in the Westside

station.

“They’re all smart and committed people,” he said. “We also get a

lot of support from the community.”

Bobbie said she has made several friends working at the main

station.

“I get a lot of satisfaction knowing that I’m helping out,” she

said. “My job is mostly something a secretary would do. Hopefully,

it’s helped them save some money, too.”

After all, Bobbie worked as a clerk typist for the Newport-Mesa

Unified School District for 26 years -- 24 of those years in

Killybrooke Elementary School.

“I was not one to jump from one job to another, as you can tell,”

she said.

Before moving to the traffic department, Bobbie helped out the

crime scene investigators’ photo lab, filing fingerprint cards.

“They got a picture of me doing that when I got my award,” Bobbie

said.

“Why, did they want to actually prove that you did your job?”

Bruce teased.

Bobbie shrugged and smiled.

It’s a scene that seems to play again ad again at the Hedrick

household. Good humor is welcomed, acknowledged and enjoyed.

“I used to be a very shy girl when I was younger,” Bobbie said.

“But as you get older, you do need a sense of humor about things.”

Even her front license plate reflects her attitude. It reads:

“Once you’re over the hill, you pick up speed.”

It’s an attitude that keeps her young at heart, said Bobbie, who

sports three rows of silver bracelets on her right hand and a white,

beaded anklet on her right leg.

Bruce is quick to point out that his wife is a member of the Costa

Mesa Republican Women Federated.

“She has an office of her own in this house,” he said.

“Well, you do, too,” Bobbie said. “Bruce is a ham radio operator

and that’s what he does in his office.”

Bobbie also works at the Orange County Fair and the Speedway every

year.

“I always pour beer in the Arena,” she said. “I’m going to do it

this year, too. I enjoy it too much.”

PARADING ABOUT THE NEIGHBORHOOD

The Hedricks have gotten close to their neighbors in Costa Mesa,

Bruce said.

“This is a very close knit neighborhood,” he said.

On Thursday, Bruce was getting his front yard ready for the Fourth

of July party.

“We’ve done it for years,” Bobbie said.

Bruce also organizes a small-scale parade for the three little

streets that make his neighborhood.

“We don’t go too far,” he said. “Just around here. But it’s fun.”

The couple have three grown children, all living in California.

Now they have a fourth, their 1-year-old puppy, Lucky.

She seems to have inherited the couple’s sense of humor.

“Every morning, she picks up the hardest bone she can find, walks

up to my bed and drops it on my head,” Bruce said, flinching.

“Well, guess what,” Bobbie said. “I’ve trained her well.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.