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Booted Harleydude
and BikerBeef

Some stats about the guys pictured here:

Partners

Booted Harleydude (BHD), owner of this website, is the guy on the right in this photo.
BikerBeef (BB, left) was just shy of 6' tall, weight proportionate to height, five years older than BHD, brown eyes, full beard, fuzzy chest, warm smile, cute butt.
With deep sorrow and regret, BB died in January 2021 of pancreatic cancer whose chemo treatment caused kidney failure due to a massive infection that he could not overcome. His last day in our home was Christmas, 2020. I had to transport him to a hospice facility on New Year's Eve. He died five days later. (This is why I do not "celebrate" Christmas or New Years). This page remains here as a memorial to my beloved husband.
We met on April 25, 1993, when the club we both recently joined participated in the March on Washington in Washington, DC, USA. We will never forget the minute we met -- BB came out of a room a the club President's house, extended his hand, shook BHD's, and said, "Hi, I'm (BB)". BHD returned the handshake, and said, "Hi, I'm (BHD)". We spent the whole day together talking and getting to know one another, and during the march, kissed each other in front of the White House. We went our separate ways that evening; didn't have our first real "date" until the next weekend, which began with a romantic home-cooked meal, a night together, and then a long two-up motorcycle ride the next day.
We weren't really looking for a mate or a partner. It just happened, but then again, we wanted to make it work. We share a lot of common values and interests. We also were different enough that we appreciated learning from one another. BHD is from a huge family, BB was from a very small one. BHD has a cosmopolitan diplomatic background, BB was from a working-class steel town. BHD has lived in Europe and traveled the world; BB traveled (at the time we met) to just a few states in the U.S. We are/were both college educated, financially secure, future-oriented, and self-sufficient. Neither of us wanted a dependent or subservient partner. We wanted—and had—a 50-50 partnership with mutual respect for each other's talents, skills, abilities, and challenges. In our 28 years together, that's what we had.
We lived apart for our first five years, spending only weekends and vacations together until we decided to make things permanent. After looking at the used-home market, we decided to build a house in the Maryland 'burbs of DC, where BHD grew up. BB moving to Maryland liberated him from Virginia where the politics about our relationship at the time we met were downright hateful. Maryland is much more accepting and tolerant, and commutable to Washington, DC, where both of us worked. Neither of us are/were city kids, and did not want to live in the federal District of Columbia, which has taxation without representation in Congress, more noise, and higher taxes.
We were legally married on April 4, 2013, in the courthouse of the county where we live in the Free State of Maryland. (Photos below)