{"id":412,"date":"2009-05-10T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-10T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=412"},"modified":"2019-04-10T07:19:24","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T11:19:24","slug":"dinner-with-sneakered-bike-cops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=412","title":{"rendered":"Dinner with Sneakered Bike Cops"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, I went to dinner with a buddy who is a motorcycle police officer. We joined a group of other motorcycle officers who have arrived in town for Police Week.<\/p>\n

The dinner was at a brew pub, which was located in Lower Slobbovia<\/a> (a term I have used to refer to that state across the Potomac River from mine.) I rode with my buddy in his truck; he doesn’t own a personal motorcycle, and he didn’t want to ride as a passenger on mine. (When you operate a motorcycle all day for your job, the last thing you want to do is ride as anyone else’s passenger.)<\/p>\n

When we were seated at the restaurant, the guys ordered appetizers and beers all-around, trying the various samples of microbrews that the pub had to offer. I just smiled and sipped a ginger ale. (I am unable to drink alcohol, and the appetizers weren’t something I could eat.) Dinner — a steak — was okay (not stellar, but chewable.)<\/p>\n

I didn’t know anyone other than my buddy, but the others were friendly and easy to talk to. The conversation we had was about the usual stuff: work-related stories and stresses, experiences, family, and motorcycle riding. When the conversation turned to family, those who were married talked about their wives and children as a natural part of the conversation. When I was speaking and mentioning my partner was part of the story, I would say, “my partner, he…”. The other guys didn’t bat an eye or make any comments or seem to care that I’m gay and have a partner. If my buddy vouched for me, that was fine with them.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed listening to they way they described how they use their motors on their jobs. Interestingly, six of my eight dinner-mates do not ride a motorcycle off the job. And further, none of the eight motormen gathered for dinner in casual wear (jeans, t-shirts) had boots on. Each one wore sneakers — even my buddy.<\/p>\n

As the night went on, I finally asked about wearing boots. Almost all of them said, “fine for work; off the job, I want to be comfortable,” or similar. They said that the boots they wear for work were okay, but the boots <\/span>\"\"<\/a>were part of the uniform, and that was that. I guess that’s about the same as what I see among the members of my motorcycle club. They wear boots while riding, but often when they’re not riding, they wear sneakers.<\/p>\n

Me? I was the only one in boots last night, but then again, I always wear boots. I don’t own any shoes. No one noticed, cared, or said anything. But no one ever does. Shown are the boots I wore (short Wesco harness boots.)<\/p>\n

Life is short: wear your boots!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, I went to dinner with a buddy who is a motorcycle police officer. We joined a group of other motorcycle officers who have arrived in town for Police Week. The dinner was at a brew pub, which was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cop-boots","category-motorcycle-boots"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}