The Press in Pennsylvania | Joe Biden still returns to Scranton

Every Sunday, our correspondent in Washington tells us a slice of life in American society.

(Scranton) He left at 10 years old, but Joe Biden always comes back. Scranton is in almost all its important speeches, the symbol of an industrious, pious, family-oriented middle class.

Just this week, the entire Green Ridge neighborhood was sealed off as the president returned to the old blue colonial home of his grandparents, who had taken his family in after his father’s setbacks.

“From this house to the White House, by the grace of God”, we can read on the small poster installed in front of the house after his election in 2020. It is surmounted by a photo of Joseph Robinette Biden at 8 or 9 years old during a baseball game.

There are not many local witnesses left of the politician’s childhood. His family moved to Delaware just as Scranton was in decline.

For a century, this town nestled between two hills in the “anthracite valley” was one of the world’s coal capitals. We see some pieces of it at the Historical Society, where we also keep the president’s first communion register.

Fans of numerology will be interested to know that the 46^e president lived at 2446 from Washington Avenue North.

The Irish were among the first immigrants to settle here, to work in the mines, hence the strong Catholic footprint in town – churches, colleges, universities.

There aren’t many witnesses left of little Biden, but Mary Lynn Ruddy can tell you about the old Catholic Scranton in which the president lived.

“They were big families, everyone was outside all the time, not on the tablets… We came home at lunchtime, it was an incredible community life,” says the retired teacher.

She is sitting at Stirna’s Irish pub, with two friends. The three vote Democratic, like the majority of the city, but without much enthusiasm, given the age of their candidate… like the majority of Democrats. “I’m afraid young people won’t vote for him,” says Cathy Evans.

If Scranton is clearly “blue”, Pennsylvania is rather purple: Trump won the key state by 45,000 votes (0.7%) in 2016, and Biden by 80,600 (1.16%) in 2020…

Scranton’s best-known Republican is Paul Catalano, who took over the Italian grocery store founded by his Sicilian grandparents “who worked seven days a week.” There are Sicilian anchovies and Calabrian peppers. His nephew Paul didn’t want to let me leave without giving me the famous “hoagie”, an Italian cold meat sandwich which is claimed to have sold more than a million copies.

“My legs hurt so much, I hardly go to the grocery store anymore,” the 81-year-old grocer told me, who had a salon in a corner of the “deli” for a long time.

“I didn’t know Mr. Biden, but one of my clients played baseball with him. I would like to go back to those days, everyone knew each other, people looked after their porches, there weren’t many cars, we played baseball in the street… There were bars on every street corner, we saw the guys coming back from the mine covered in dust, they came to have a whiskey. It’s still good, but not like before. »

He became a Republican somewhat by chance, because he was missing a municipal councilor.

“I didn’t know anything, I went to read at the municipal library… I ran against a big Democratic wig, an Irishman, a good guy. He beat me. But the next time, I won. I got along well with the Democrats. That’s how politics should be. President Reagan was going to have a beer with Tip O’Neil [leader démocrate à la Chambre].

— And Trump?

— Well, he’s a little rough around the edges, it’s true, but he’s a fighter from New York. Sometimes I deplore what he says. But you have to look at the whole. He knows business. He wants other countries to participate in military spending. If you have to have open heart surgery, will you choose the surgeon with the best manners or the one who works best? »

On South Hyde Park Street, I notice a house plastered with posters that not-too-subtly suggest an anti-Biden bent, particularly on military matters.

Bob Tucker, 82, is a different kind of Donald Trump supporter. But his bad opinion of his ex-fellow citizen dates back to around 1951.

Little Bob played for the Sprague and Henwood team, named after the mining equipment company that sponsored the club. Little Joe played for a Green Ridge team sponsored by a banker.

“I just remember him playing shortstop or second base, and when the ball came at him, he dropped it. In Little League it was serious, you can’t drop the ball. He was crying. I remember that. He dropped the bullet! »

The Press could not confirm the information with a second source…

It was a different kind of bullet that Bob received in the leg while patrolling a river in Vietnam in one of those famous little “gun boats”.

“They told me: ‘If we take it away from you, you could get gangrene.’ I still have it. »

His wife died in 2013. “Fifty-four years of marriage… I asked her to marry him, a little laughingly, before leaving for the war. She hadn’t said anything. Six months later, we were on the train to visit her parents, and she said “yes”. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I received a slap on the back of the head! »

One of his two sons also died, at age 52, of cancer.

“My brother lives next door, he’s the owner. He praises me. He married for money, my brother, we don’t speak anymore… His wife is in the hospital. Stroke. He spends his entire days there, from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. in the evening! He must love her, deep down…”

The problem with Biden?

“It’s Obama’s puppet!” The real president is Obama. Afterwards, it will be his wife.

– You think ?

– I know ! I have the proof, you can come and see.

— I don’t have much time… But then, what’s the problem with Obama? »

He tells me about his jet trips at taxpayers’ expense, the pipelines he wants to close, the open border.

So now that he’s retired from trucking, he’s organizing the resistance.

And from time to time he plays Harbor Lightsfrom the Platters.

“It was our favorite song, you know: you were on the boat, me on the shore… We knew each other, I was in the Navy, but she waited for me. »