[livius drusus]

'Wow, what a long engagement that was!'

The way Henry Schalizki tells it, his second encounter with Bob Davis came in 1945, when his fellow serviceman arrived in Hawaii to entertain the troops with the USO. [...]

[T]hree years later, when Henry walked into a Baltimore bar where Bob was sitting alone, they quickly retraced their acquaintance. Bob had just moved to town for a job as a personality on a fledgling television station. Henry had grown up in Charm City and returned after the war to take a job with the B&O railroad administration.

When Henry learned Bob was staying at a seedy boarding house, he invitedhim to stay the night in his guest room, saying, "tomorrow we'll find you something."

But that never happened. They fell in love, and Bob "stayed and stayed" -- through good times and bad, sickness and health, through Stonewall and Vietnam, through the terms of 12 U.S. presidents, starting with Harry Truman. Through the loss of more friends than they care to count. They stayed together long enough to witness what they thought was impossible: Last Sunday, they exercised their newfound right, exchanging vows on a rooftop overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue, turning their six-decade relationship into a marriage.