Eighty-eight-year-old Gertrude Nutt doesn’t have a cell phone or a computer, nor does she watch a lot of television, but she does know enough pop culture jargon to jokingly refer to herself as “a cougar.”

“I like younger men,” she said. “He’s six months younger than me.”

“He” is John Hermann, the love of her life, and soon to be her husband. The octogenarians met at Meadowlark Senior Center, less than 100 yards from their apartment.

Rio Rancho Observer '�” Gary Herron photo Gertrude Nutt and John Hermann met at Meadowlark Senior Center nearly a year ago. It was love at first sight, both agree. They are getting married in February.

They still recall that December 2008 meeting; it was love at first sight.

Basically a loner, Hermann said he first saw Trudy sitting at a table in the MSC dining room.

Unfortunately, he said, every seat at her table was occupied. He walked past her, though, and said he liked her hat.

“Such a deep meaning,” she recalled, smiling.

The next day, there was a vacant seat. Hermann sat down and the two started talking and soon became an item.

“He is the kindest, sweetest man I have had in my life,” she said. “We eat cornflakes by candlelight.”

The two are getting married in February.

She is the adventurous sort, noting she “bought her first pair of tap shoes at (age) 84.”

Nutt — and she admittedly is — was born in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and she’s since lived in places all over, from coast to coast, from Maine to California, with a 50-year stint in Tucson, Ariz.

“I hate the heat, really,” she said. “I’m a slow learner. I think (New Mexico) is the best state for the weather.”

She’s worked as a dental assistant, a doctor’s assistant, a purchasing agent and, after getting married for the second time, was urged by that husband to pursue her dream of being a nurse.

“I started nursing school at 49,” she said, first taking the time to get her GED (General Education Development test).

“I’ve had a wonderful life — it overwhelms me,” Nutt said

Hermann is a native of San Francisco. His family moved to New Jersey when he was a kid, and he attended college in Newark and, later, in New York at Columbia University.

An engineer with a background in explosives, he said he’d enlisted during World War II, and was in the infantry until he discovered the paratroopers were recruiting members.

“I had been in airplanes and figured that was better than walking,” he reasoned, but before he had a chance to join the war effort overseas, he was sent to Los Alamos.

After World War II ended, Hermann was sent to the University of New Mexico, where he obtained his PhD in chemical engineering. He later worked for Kerr-McGee, an energy company, retiring at the age of 65.

Living in Oklahoma when his wife died a few years ago, Hermann decided he wanted

to live closer to his three children, two of whom live in New Mexico and another in Austin, Texas.

His daughter-in-law, who lives in Placitas, found him an apartment in Rio Rancho.

Still, it took some moxie for him to venture across two parking lots to Meadowlark Senior Center.

"I’m pretty much a shy person," he said.

Nutt is anything but shy.

Nonetheless, she says, "We’re very compatible. We go to bed early, we get up early, and we like the same things. … We enjoy the simple things. We watch the news; we walk."

And, they laugh a lot.

Hermann is hard of hearing; Nutt has macular degeneration and is slowly losing her eyesight. "He reads to me; it’s so nice," she said, lately enjoying selections from "All Things Great and Small" by James Herriot.

"I’m not going to live long enough to go blind," she said.

Statements like that, MSC director Deborah Brogdon knows, could only come from Trudy Nutt.

"She has the soul of a young person," Brogdon said. "She has always been outgoing and full of life and never complained — and has always had a lust for life."

If the two had only met a half-century or so earlier, Nutt thinks, "We would’ve had a dozen children."

Nutt said the two aren’t planning a honeymoon to celebrate their marriage.

"I think every day is a honeymoon for us," she said.

"You can tell they’re in love," Brogdon concluded.