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On Campaign Trail, Biden Comes HomeBy SHERYL GAY
STOLBERG<http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/author/sheryl-gay-stolberg/>

SCRANTON, Pa. – As he campaigns for Democrats around the country, Vice
President Joseph R. Biden
Jr.<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/joseph_r_jr_biden/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
likes
to say that the “the longest walk up a short flight of stairs’’ that a man
can take is the one to tell the kids he has lost his job. Invariably, Mr.
Biden follows up by recounting how own father took just such a walk when the
family lived in this hardscrabble town.

On Monday, Mr. Biden shared that story yet again – this time at the foot of
the staircase where it took place.

The vice president took a trip down memory lane during a visit to Scranton
Monday to stump for Representative Chris Carney, an endangered Democrat.
After headlining a fund-raiser for Mr. Carney, Mr. Biden, 67, made a quick
trip to his boyhood home, a three-story, gray-clapboard house in Green
Ridge, an upper-middle-class neighborhood whose fortunes have improved since
the Bidens left for Wilmington, Del. when the vice president was 11. His
last visit was two years ago, when he inscribed his name on the wall of the
third-floor bedroom where he once slept.

“My old house never looked better,’’ Mr. Biden said bounding up the steps to
greet the current owner, Anne Kearns, who purchased the home from Mr.
Biden’s family 48 years ago. Making his way into the kitchen, he offered up
some oft-told childhood tales, including the ‘’long walk’’ story and one
about the fight he got into with some neighborhood boys while his mother was
in the kitchen washing dishes.

“I got the living hell kicked out of me,’’ the vice president said,
remembering that his mother instructed him to return to the scene of the
fight to deliver a pop in the nose to one of three bullies who had beaten
him up. “Joey,’’ she told him, by his account, “go back out there or you
won’t be able to walk in the alley anymore if you don’t.’’ He complied,
recalling “I was more afraid of my mother.” She rewarded him with 25 cents.

Later, Mr. Biden’s motorcade drove a few blocks for another surprise visit
to a corner-candy store – now a delicatessen called Hank’s Hoagies – that he
frequented as a boy. The place was festooned with Biden memorabilia,
including an old poster advertising the vice president’s autobiography and
2007 book signing he held in Scranton, and a yellowed Biden for President
sign from his failed 1988 bid for the White House. Mr. Biden pulled a bottle
of Hank’s Root Beer from the refrigerator and ordered an Italian sandwich.

As he waited, he tore open a package of Tastykake crème-filled chocolate
cupcakes and dug into one.

“Don’t tell Jill I ate this,’’ he said, referring to his wife.

All around town, Mr. Biden was greeted by people wanting him to pose for
pictures — a happy diversion from questions about how Democrats will fare in
the upcoming elections. (They will keep both chambers, he predicted.)
Outside his old house, he quickly dispensed with political talk in favor of
another story, about the time he got into trouble for sledding down the
hill.

“It’s just so great to be home,’’ he said.
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Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.co