Joe Makes Me Proud to be a Delawarean, and an American

While we usually reserve these posts for educational issues, today I wanted to give a shout out to Delaware’s Joe Biden and the full slate of leaders in Delaware that spoke at his welcome home celebration.

On this rainy Friday, I needed to go down to the convention center by the Wilmington train station at two in the afternoon. This is not usual. I don’t take a lot of time out of the office, but I had to go.

In pop-up fashion, there was an event at the Chase Center to welcome home Jill and Joe. I had only heard of it the day before and had to juggle meetings to get down there. My wife called me late morning and said she was going too. We weren’t alone.

Even though I went to UD and I’ve lived here for more than a dozen years, I’m still a transplant. Even so, I am one of the millions who love Joe.

One reason for that love is that Joe genuinely cares about people. I experienced that one summer day in 2015. It was just after tragic death of Beau Biden, one of Joe’s two sons. Joe and the rest of the Biden family were holding a memorial service about a half-mile from my house at St. Anthony’s Church. The family was scheduled to receive mourners for a few hours. Long lines were forming around the building several hours before the church doors opened. The Biden family stayed and received people for at least double the originally allotted time without a break for dinner, and the line never seemed to diminish.

My wife was one of the people that waited in that line. After a couple of hours, she made it to Joe and gave him a hug and was looking to move on when he asked her about her dad, Sid Balick. Sid had given Joe his first job as a lawyer some 40 years prior. She relayed that his health was failing and that he couldn’t have waited in this line. Joe called over a secret service officer and directed him to help my wife get her dad in the church. She went home, got her dad, who wasn’t steady on his feet, and they were expedited in through a side door.

Joe’s eyes lit up when he saw him. He gave Sid a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and said, “you’re still the best lawyer in Delaware.” I watched in amazement that in the depths of his own despair, Joe had the presence of mind, and genuine compassion, to be thinking of others in such a profound way.  Beyond that, as I sat and watched, it seemed that he had a story, a laugh and a real hug for just about every person on that line.

Given that this past Monday we honored Martin Luther King, it seems fitting to quote him in regard to our vice president. King once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” In a time that would have crushed most of us, Joe stood tall and reached down to comfort someone else.

In his comments today, through some emotional moments of joy and appreciation, the vice president spoke of America’s indomitable spirit and his genuine interest in supporting the new administration. His close was, “When I die, Delaware will be written on my heart.”

So, that’s why all of us had to go down to the train station today. For all the love and respect Joe Biden has shown to others, several thousand of us had to be there for him. Our full U.S. delegation (including Senators Carper and Coons, who had been in D.C. for the morning inauguration and had to go back for some votes that afternoon) was amazing in their tributes as were our new mayor and governor and Joe’s sister, Valerie.  The love in that room was through the roof. The national guard was there to greet the Bidens, as was the UD marching band, some amazing gospel singers and thousands of regular people holding signs and occasionally shouting, “I love you Joe!”

In this time of political polarization, I was proud to be a Delawarean, and proud to be an American.