Joe Biden - Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

CONTENTS

For Mom and Dad,
who kept their promises

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

ROBERT FROST

PROLOGUE

THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF POLITICS, THE FOUNDATIONAL principle, I learned in the 1950s in my grandpops kitchen when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. My parents had recently moved us to Delaware, but most Friday nights Mom and Dad would load me, my sister, Val, my brother Jimmy and the baby, Frankie, into our car and drive up to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to spend the weekend at Grandpop Finnegans house. Id have Saturday to play with my old friends from the neighborhoodbaseball, basketball, cops and robbers. Between games, wed head down toward Green Ridge Corners, stopping in at Handy Dandy for caps for our cap guns, or to Pappsys or Simmeys for penny candy. Simmeys was right next to Joseph Walshs storefront insurance agency, so wed pass right by the crucifix in the window. It wasnt unusual or at all odd to us to see a crucifix in a place of business. A lot of the people who shopped at the Green Ridge stores were Irish Catholics like us. We never thought about it one way or another. Seemed to us like most of the kids in our neighborhood were Catholic, and we all knew what was expected of us. If we saw a nun on the street on our way into Simmeys on a Saturday wed tip our capsGood afternoon, Sisterand wed always hold the door for her. The priests were a presence around the neighborhood, too, and they warranted respect. My grandpop might complain about Monsignor Vaughan, who was always asking for more money, but nobody in Green Ridge passed a priest without acknowledging him: Gdafternoon, Father.

Many of the businesses in Green Ridge dated back fifty years, when the coming of the first electric trolley lines sprouted these tightly packed neighborhoods where the bootstrap Irishmen could move their families for fresh air and a little patch of green lawn. My mom had been to some of these stores when she was a little girl.

Once wed spent our limit on penny candy from Simmeys, Charlie Roth, Larry Orr, Tommy Bell, and I would head toward the Roosie Theatre for the twelve-cent double featureusually a pair of westerns or Tarzan.

If we had time to spare after the movies let out, we might stop in at Thompsons market. Mr. Thompson kept a live monkey in the store, so even if we couldnt afford more candy, it was worth the stop. We might linger in front of Evelyn and E-Pauls, too, waiting for the aroma of homemade candy and ice cream to waft by. But when the sun started to drop, Charlie, Larry, Tommy, and I began to make our way home, heading down East Market Street to the Lackawanna River. Stunted little eight-foot trees lined the bank on our side of the river, so wed swing on the branches, reenacting scenes from the Tarzan movie wed just seen. The bigger adventure was crossing the river at a gallop on top of sixteen-inch pipes. We knew we probably shouldnt; the Lacky was a sewage dump in the fifties, and filthy. Our parents were always warning us away from it. But as long as we didnt fall in, who would know? Running the pipe was hardly a mortal sin.

When wed finished at the river, it was usually supper time, so wed pick up the pacethrough the alley behind Richmont Street, which was a string of one-story garages. Tommy and I would run the roofs of the garages, leaping from one to the next. Grounds the swamp. Touch it and you dieeaten by alligators! Charlie and Larry usually took their chances with the alligators. Sometimes one of the Richmont Street residents would open a back window and give a hollerYou boys get down off those garages! Anyway, it was usually near dark on Saturday evening before Charlie, Larry, Tommy, and I made it back home.

Sunday was different; that day was reserved for family. It started with Mass. My attendance was not optional. The entire Finnegan clan rode over to Saint Pauls Catholic Church together, and church always felt like an extension of home. I had already worked my way through the questions in the Baltimore catechism: Who made us?Who is God?What is a Spirit?What do we mean when we say that God is all good? And the answers: For the word of the Lord is right; and all His works are done with faithfulness. He loveth mercy and judgment: the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord. I could practically recite the entire catechism. Id memorized the Lords Prayer and the Apostles Creed. Id been to my first confession. My grandpop Finnegan had taught me to say the Rosary. And every night when I went in to kiss my grandpop good night, hed remind me: Three Hail Marys for purity, Joey. It was a long time before I understood he was talking about chastity. In the beginning I thought he meant nobility or purity of cause, ideas that tracked with the sermons we heard at Saint Pauls. It was more about doing good than being good.

After Mass, the Finnegans and their friends would gather at my grandpops house at 2446 North Washington Avenue, out at the end of the trolley line. Dinner was already cooked, warming in the oven, so the women took their ease in the dining room, thumbing the lace tablecloth, having tea.

Meanwhile, Grandpop, his pals from the neighborhood, maybe a crony from the Scranton Tribune, and my Finnegan uncles, Jack and Boo-Boo, settled in at the kitchen table. Theyd sit in the spreading afternoon light talking sports and politics. These men were educated, informed, and eclecticand they loved to debate. Theyd argue local politics, state politics, world events, Truman against MacArthur, Truman against the steel companies. They were Truman Democrats, working men, or sons of working men, but they had to admit Truman might have gone too far when he tried to take over Youngstown Steel. Probably the Supreme Court was right when they knocked him back. A presidents a president, not a dictator. It seemed un-American. Still, at least he was up front about it. Thats the thing they liked about Harry Truman: no artifice. He knew where he stood, and he wasnt afraid to say it. The fellows at Grandpops table didnt trust the new Democratic standard-bearer, Adlai Stevenson. They thought he might be a little soft. They were willing to give Eisenhower the benefit of the doubt; he was a hero of the war, after all. My dad, who didnt join in the talk much, trusted Ike because he had been able to win a war while negotiating the competing national prerogatives of the western allies and the substantial egos of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Field Marshal Montgomery, and General Patton. Dad thought Eisenhower was a man with ballast, a leader. But the Finnegans wanted to argue Ikes policies.

I found myself drawn to my grandpops kitchen by the pace and power of the volleys, and although I was too young to merit a regular place in these arguments, the men didnt mind if I stayed around to listen from time to time. Even when it turned to local politicsthe doings in Scranton and Lackawanna Countyand the talk got heated, they never shooed me. One Sunday, as I remember it, they were on the case of a local pol they called Patrick, a slick Irish operator, friend to the diocese, friend to the working man, friend to his neighbors, friend to his familymaybe too good a friend. I guess Patricks political favors, even in the days of patronage, had often caught the attention of the local newspapers. Some of the younger guys thought it was time for Patrick to move aside, time to put a more modern sheen on the Democratic machine in Scranton. But I noticed my grandfather was defending Patrick even when his friends kept attacking him. After a while my grandfather stopped defending and did something hed never done in these Sunday talkathons: He turned to me and said, Joey, youre wondering why Pop likes Patrick.