The alarm went off at 6:00am on Saturday May 22, 2021 and it was moving day. After a three-night stay at the Comfort Inn in Arlington, Virginia, my companions packed up their gear and we boarded the Rogue for our journey eastward – a journey that would take us back into Washington one final time on the trip. As we “escaped” the Capital City, another person of interest rode with us in spirit; at least for a mile or two. That person was none other than actor-turned-assassin John Wilkes Booth. It turned out that our route towards Annapolis, Maryland took us over the Anacostia River on a bridge near the Washington Navy Yard. That was the same bridge, or at least a bridge in the same location, that Booth used in his escape into Maryland after leaving Ford’s Theater in 1865. As soon as we got into Maryland, however, we parted ways with the scorned assassin’s wraith; Tom continued on an eastward path while Booth had travelled south towards the Surratt Tavern in Clinton, Maryland. In my mind, it was good riddance to bad juju.
My travel mates and I arrived at the Maryland State House at 8:45am and we had fifteen minutes to kill before we could enter the historic building. For Tom and I, it was the second time we had been to the Capitol Building of Maryland in less than a year. In July of 2020, the building was closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced me to pose for exterior images only. But for once, luck was finally on our side – the State House had opened it’s doors to the public for the first time in over a year on Friday, the day before we arrived. After we had spent some time at the Thurgood Marshall Memorial located across the street from the State House, the clock struck nine bells and Tom carried me through the doors of the oldest state capital in continuous legislative use in our nation; dating to 1772. After we made it through security, I was headed for the room that had been on our ‘must-see’ list for a while – the Old Senate Chamber where General George Washington had resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army on December 23, 1783.
As soon as my photographer carried me through the doors of the Old Senate Chamber, I saw the life-size bronze statue of George Washington standing on the spot where the General had read his resignation letter in front of the Congress of the Confederation. When Tom placed me at the feet of Washington, I immediately visualized what had happened on that historic day. At noon on Tuesday December 23, 1783, General Washington was led into the Old Senate Chamber by Charles Thomson, who was the secretary of the Continental Congress. The commander-in-chief proudly stood and read his letter aloud to the President of the Continental Congress Thomas Mifflin. It gave me chills as I envisioned Washington reading his letter, which ended with: “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission and take my leave of all the employments of public life.” Those historic words still echoed off the walls in that chamber, at least in my mind. When Washington finished speaking, he handed his commission and resignation letter to President Mifflin. The next morning, George left for Mount Vernon with the thoughts that his public life was over. He couldn’t have imagined how wrong he was.
For me, it was an indescribable feeling I had when I stood inside the Old Senate Chamber at the Maryland State House. However, there were two other historically significant events that occurred in that Senate Chamber as well. The first happened on January 14, 1784 when Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris that formally ended the American Revolutionary War. And the second occurred less than four months later when Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson as minister plenipotentiary on May 7th of that year. At first I wasn’t sure what a minister plenipotentiary was or what they did. It turned out that Jefferson, after his appointment, joined John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to negotiate treaties of amity and commerce with European nations.
When Tom and I were finished in the Old Senate Chamber, he carried me across the hallway, under the rotunda, and over to the Old House of Delegates Chamber. While that room didn’t have any Presidential significance for me, it did have historical importance that I thought was inspiring. In November 1864, Maryland delegates ratified a new constitution in that very chamber that prohibited slavery in the state of Maryland. During my time in the Old House of Delegates, I had the honor of posing with the statue of Harriet Tubman as she held me in her hands. I also wanted to pose with the statue of Frederick Douglass, which stood nearby, but Tom couldn’t find a suitable place for me to stand without the fear of me falling to my death. What I found artistically fascinating was the fact that both statues featured incredibly brave people who were born into slavery in Maryland and their likenesses gazed towards the desk where their individual freedom became guaranteed by the state’s new constitution.
After the three of us spent a few minutes inside the current Senate Chamber and the House of Delegates, we walked around the first floor of the State House in an effort to pay tribute to the four Signers of the Declaration of Independence from Maryland. Each of those four courageous men likely walked through those hallowed halls as well. Those four incredible men were William Paca, Thomas Stone, Samuel Chase, and the legendary Charles Carroll, who was the last living signatory of the Declaration when he died at the age of 95 on November 14, 1832. Carroll had outlived four of our nation’s first five Presidents until his death of a heart attack in Baltimore. I also remembered that Carroll had handed the main clue to the Treasure of the Templar Knights to Thomas Gates in the movie ‘National Treasure’.
We had spent over 45 minutes inside the Maryland State House; which was a stop that wasn’t penciled-in on our agenda because my companions had just discovered the night before that the building had re-opened to the public. During our short walk back to the Rogue, Mongo mentioned that he wanted to visit the United States Naval Academy cemetery where Shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandless was buried after his death in December 2017. Since we were only a mile or two from that burial ground, it was a “no-brainer” that we’d stop. However, when we arrived at the entry gate to the academy a few minutes later, several cadets stood in our path and delivered the bad news: The Naval Academy was closed to the public. Bob explained to the cadets that we were there only to visit the gravesite of McCandless and all of us were vaccinated against the COVID virus, but that information didn’t make any difference to them. I could tell Mongo was very disappointed and somewhat agitated when he stated as we made a U-turn: “I can’t believe they wouldn’t let us in to see that grave; especially since all of us were vaccinated. Once again the inconsistencies with this entire pandemic is maddening. I really thought the vaccine would open up some doors for us; doors that unvaccinated people wouldn’t be allowed to go through. But that wasn’t the case there.”
We left the Naval Academy behind and headed towards Delaware; a route which took us over the scenic Chesapeake Bay Bridge. When we crossed the border into the First State, it was my second visit in the past ten months after never setting foot in Delaware prior to 2020. Even though Delaware is the second smallest state in the country, it seemed to “play big” that day; especially since we had to bisect the entire state at its widest point. What made matters worse for Tom and Bob was the fact that their beloved GPS guide, Siri, decided to take them on a zig-zag path along remote roads for the entire trip to Rehoboth Beach. That 92-mile drive from Annapolis should have taken only two hours to make, but thanks to Siri, it took 45 minutes longer.
Once we had finally arrived at 12:30pm, my photographer parked our vehicle within walking distance of President Joe Biden’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach. When Tom carefully removed me from the camera case, the first thing I saw were two black Secret Service vehicles that were parked in the U-shaped driveway; the occupants inside those cars looked like they meant business as well. But since Farview Road was a public street, the three of us nonchalantly walked in front of the handsome two-story, gray-with-white-trim cottage where Tom snapped several images of me. As my photographer held me aloft with the beach house in the background, I couldn’t understand for the life of me why Biden’s place was called a “Beach House”. There may have been a canal behind the cottage that I couldn’t see from the street, but that so-called “Beach House” stood roughly a half-mile from the sandy shore of the Atlantic Ocean.
If my arms could move, I would have scratched my head – we spent nearly three hours driving to the eastern shore of Delaware and our visit to Biden’s beach house lasted less than ten minutes. Even though my head was filled with resin, which was likely the reason why Tom and Bob never ask for my opinion, I thought it would’ve made more sense to have headed straight for Wilmington from Annapolis instead of driving 150 miles out of the way to see that cottage. I could’ve understood the decision had the place been Biden’s birthplace or some other primary home, but it was only a small summer cottage with hardly any historical significance whatsoever except for being owned by a President. With that thought still bouncing off the insides of my hollow head, my photographer stuffed me back into the camera case and we began our 90-mile drive north towards the Wilmington area. As I stood alone inside that dark bag, I had hoped that Tom’s “bonehead” decision to visit the beach house wouldn’t keep us from seeing other sites later in the day due to lack of daylight. I knew my photographer had a laundry list of Biden sites he wanted me to visit in Wilmington and because of Siri’s earlier wild goose chase, we were in jeopardy of running out of time.
Nearly two hours after we left Rehoboth Beach and headed north along Delaware’s eastern shore, I heard my camera guy say something that completely shocked me: “Mongo, do you want to stop in New Castle and visit the grave of George Read?” Even though New Castle was only five or six miles from downtown Wilmington, that stop made less sense to me than Biden’s beach house. At least Biden’s place was a Presidential site; George Read was a Signer of the Declaration of Independence and all three of us have visited his gravesite in the past. While it had been 30 years since Mongo was at the Immanuel Episcopal Churchyard where the Signer was buried, Tom and I had paid our respects at Read’s grave ten months earlier. I kept my resin mouth shut and went along for the ride. At the same time, I also kept my “I told ya so” card in the back pocket of my breeches; it was a card I would play should we run out of daylight before we finished seeing all of the sites.
The three of us spent only about 20 minutes inside the churchyard in New Castle where I once again posed on the tombstone of George Read. As I stood on the four-foot-tall marble marker, my internal clock was ticking. It was already 2:45pm and I was anxious to visit the numerous Joe Biden sites that I knew were on the itinerary. In my mind, I had been Biden my time since we arrived in Delaware and the only Presidential site I had seen was his cottage. But that all changed once we finally made it into downtown Wilmington where we began a whirlwind, non-stop tour of every Joe Biden site that my companions knew about. I had to give Tom and Bob credit; they were geographically organized which enabled us to take our time at each site – even though we were under a self-inflicted time crunch.
Our first stop was at a huge building called the Chase Center on the Riverfront, which was built in 1999 near the Christina River. On Saturday November 7, 2020, Democratic candidate Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris stood on a large stage that had been erected across the street from the convention center where Biden announced his highly contested victory as our 46th President. When the three of us arrived at the site, Tom knew that spectators on that historic night watched Biden’s announcement and celebration from their cars in the parking lot of nearby Daniel S. Frawley Stadium. However, Tom wasn’t sure where the stage had been erected. Not wanting to guess where Biden and Harris stood, the three of us ventured inside the adjacent Westin Hotel and asked the desk clerk for some guidance. The friendly young woman not only pin-pointed the exact location of the stage, she also showed us images from the event that she had captured with her phone.
Standing in the spot where Joe Biden delivered his victory speech a few days after the election was a great start to our Delaware Presidential trail. As a matter of fact, when I stood in the stadium parking lot across the street from the Chase Center on the Riverfront, it was as though I could still hear President-elect Biden as he spoke to his faithful followers: “Folks, the people of this nation have spoken. They’ve delivered us a clear victory; a convincing victory; a victory for ‘We the People’. We’ve won with the most votes ever cast for a Presidential ticket in the history of the nation – 74 million.” While those words were echoing inside my hollow head, I laughed as I thought to myself: “I bet there’s still a lot of Trump supporters who believe Donald won the election; and they’re likely still saying ‘We The People will never concede our 2020 victory'”.
Back in the Rogue, Tom followed the curvature of the Christina River for about a mile until he parked the vehicle down the street from an impressive-looking Amtrak train station. But that wasn’t just any ordinary train station – it was Wilmington Station that has been called the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Railroad Station since 2011 when Biden served as Vice President under Barack Obama. During Joe Biden’s time as a U.S. Senator, he took the train from Wilmington Station to Washington and back again every workday for 36 years. In 1987, “Amtrak Joe” Biden announced his bid for the 1988 Democratic Presidential Nomination at that station. As I posed for a few photos near the exterior of Wilmington Station, I thought it was heartwarming to know that Senator Biden had endured the daily 200-mile round-trip train rides just so he could be with his kids in the evening; especially after their mother and sister were killed a week before Christmas in 1972.
During our time at the Amtrak station in Wilmington, I gained a newfound appreciation for Joe Biden. It wasn’t anything about his public service, politics, or anything from the swamp; but the fact that he sacrificed so much for his children spoke volumes about the man. I had a bounce in my step and a wiggle in my head, especially when I heard we were headed to see The Queen. It’s been an amazing ride for me to pay homage to all of the Presidents, but the chance to meet royalty was completely unexpected. However, when we completed the half-mile drive to the city’s center, The Queen turned out to be an old theater and not a woman named Elizabeth. But in my eyes, that theater was a lot more elegant and beautiful than the snobby, crown-wearing, rich woman from England.
The Queen was originally built as the Indian Queen Hotel in 1789, but was transformed into a movie theater in 1916. The historic theater, which once hosted Martin Van Buren a few years before he was elected President, was now used for all genres of entertainment, dining, and private events. But the reason for our visit to the “Royal Old Lady of Wilmington” was due to its relationship with Joe Biden. It turned out that Biden had used the venue for campaign speeches as well as transition meetings that led up to his inauguration. When Tom carried me up close to the front of the historic theater, I was disappointed that the doors were locked. In my mind, I thought it would’ve been cool to stand on the same stage that Biden had used; but it seemed we were out of luck as the doors weren’t scheduled to open for another hour. Then out of nowhere, the General Manager of The Queen came to the door when he heard my companions testing the lock. At first, Sam Blumin seemed untouched by our plea for entry; he stated that the theater was in a state of disarray from the previous night’s event. But once my photographer delivered his usual spiel about our adventures, Sam opened the door and graciously led us into the theater.
Once Tom set me down on the same stage that Joe Biden had used several times during and after his Presidential campaign, I had an incredible view of The Queen’s ‘Main Hall’. Ornate chandeliers and a disco ball hung from the ceiling; a classical balcony was framed by walls that were decorated in rustic chic. And although the entire theater looked like we were still in the 1800s, it was magnificently beautiful; it was hard to believe that the historic Queen sat vacant and in disrepair for five decades until it was resurrected in 2009. When my photographer finished shooting his images of me on the stage, I had the honor of posing for a final photo with Sam. What had begun as an exterior photo-shoot of a historic theater quickly turned into the highlight of our time in Wilmington. Once again I was afforded the privilege to stand in the footsteps of a President; and Sam Blumin made that moment possible.
During our short walk from The Queen back to the car, Tom and Bob couldn’t stop talking about our visit to that historic theater and the hospitality that Sam Blumin had given the three of us. As I was placed in the backseat of our vehicle for the trip to the next site, I couldn’t get the images and feelings I had at The Queen out of my head either. In the past, I’ve heard my companions talk about unexpected finds that turned out a lot better than anticipated – they’ve referred to those sites as “diamonds in the rough”. There was no doubt whatsoever that The Queen in Wilmington was a true diamond that would make any royal highness proud.
But as fast as our enthusiasm and newfound bounce in our steps had us floating on the clouds, that feeling quickly dissipated shortly after we stepped foot inside Hotel DuPont. The huge, magnificent hotel first opened in 1913 and during the next 108 years had played host to a plethora of famous guests; including Presidents John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. But the true reason for our visit was because Hotel DuPont had served as another high-end meeting place for Joe Biden during the campaign of 2020. After I posed for a handful of photos with the exterior of the mammoth building, Tom carried me through the golden-framed front doors and into the impressive main lobby. Not wanting to waste a lot of time inside, Mongo asked the concierge whether or not the three of us could see where Biden had announced Kamala Harris as his running mate in 2020. The middle-aged guy led us through a section of the hotel until we arrived just outside of a huge ballroom that was in the process of being decorated for a wedding reception. As we stood in the area that was roughly 25 feet from the ballroom doorway, the concierge said: “Biden gave his address in this section here. But whatever you do, don’t go into that ballroom. They’re setting up for a wedding reception inside and I’ll get in trouble for letting you get close to that ballroom. All I ask is please take your pictures quickly and then leave that area; and whatever you do, don’t get in anyone’s way.”
After Tom held me aloft for a few images, he decided to set me on a marble ledge near the staircase for an additional photo. During our entire time in that area, I was skeptical as to whether or not we were in the right place. The small section we were in, which seemed like a reception area for the huge ballroom, was too small to host a Presidential function. I started to think that Biden used the actual ballroom for his speech and the concierge only got us as close as he could. Just after my photographer fired-off his first flash photo, a woman approached rapidly and asked if Tom was the photographer. Tom shot back: “I am a photographer, but I’m not ‘thee’ photographer for the wedding.” The woman, who was likely the wedding coordinator, instantly became irate and blasted us with a verbal barrage: “What are you doing in here? Who let you in here? You guys need to leave right now; this is a private wedding reception and you can’t be in here. Don’t you take any pictures of that reception room.” From my position across the room, I was stunned by “Maleficent’s” demeanor, but at the same time, I understood the pressures a wedding planner could face in the heat of the moment. And maybe, just maybe, she either didn’t see me or didn’t recognize me.
I, for one, was happy when we left Hotel DuPont – the three of us seemed out of place there. During the entire walk back to the Rogue, I laughed as I thought myself: “We had a bounce in our steps when we left The Queen. Now we have our tails between our legs leaving that hotel. I guess they just didn’t realize who we were. I bet Tom and Bob will never stay the night there; unless of course, they can get a room for $89 a night!”
The next Biden site on our agenda was located over a mile away on the north side of Brandywine Creek in a section of Wilmington. I heard Tom as he discussed the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Aquatic Center with Mongo earlier in the trip and I was concerned from that moment on. I knew my photographer would want me to pose on the lifeguard stand used by Joe Biden and I didn’t like the idea of posing with a lot of kids around a swimming pool; even though we had the best of intents because of it being a Presidential site. But after we made the five-minute drive to Brown-Burton Winchester Park where the swimming pool was located, my worries of posing with children went away – the gates to the pool area were locked and no one was there. The three of us could see the lifeguard stand in the distance that was used by Joe Biden for a photo-op on June 26, 2017. The former Vice President was in attendance and posed on that lifeguard stand when the aquatic center was renamed in his honor. It turned out that Biden worked as a lifeguard at that pool in the Summer of 1962 at the age of 19. I thought to myself: “If you ask Joe Biden, he could answer the age-old question of ‘Where were you in ’62?’
It was a relief to me when we were finished with our visit at the Biden Aquatic Center. Even though I couldn’t sit on the famous lifeguard stand used by the former Vice President, it may have been a blessing that the gates were locked; it would’ve been awkward for me to pose near a bunch of kids at a swimming pool. Perhaps if we ever return to Wilmington, maybe my photographer could secure permission in advance that would make it possible for me to pose on the lifeguard stand without any issues.
The time had gone by quickly for us during our time in Wilmington and we had visited only half of our scheduled sites. But since it was after 5:00pm and close to dinner time for my companions, they decided to kill two birds with one stone. Tom drove west past downtown Wilmington until we arrived at a section of town known as Little Italy. Once parked, my photographer carried me to a small sandwich shop called Capriotti’s that occupied the first floor of a housing complex. There were a few times during the trip I heard Tom talk about Capriotti’s with Mongo and my camera guy mentioned “The Bobbie”, which was Joe Biden’s favorite sandwich in Delaware. After I was carried inside Capriotti’s, Tom ordered “The Bobbie”, which was advertised as “The greatest sandwich in America”. It was no shock to me when my gluttonous photographer decided he was very hungry and needed the large sandwich – which turned out to be nearly 20 inches long. “The Bobbie” was a fresh homemade hoagie bun filled with turkey, dressing, mayo, and cranberry sauce; but as good as it looked, I couldn’t believe my eyes how huge that sandwich was. After Mongo received his medium “Bobbie”, we headed to a nearby park where my companions went to work on their sandwiches.
As Tom and Bob finished eating their “Bobbie’s” at a narrow park called Bancroft Parkway, which was located one block from Capriotti’s, I heard both say it was an amazingly good tasting sandwich, but they said it would’ve been even better had the turkey meat and stuffing been heated. There was one question that ran through my mind: “Was ‘The Bobbie’ the best sandwich in America, as advertised?” While neither Tom or Mongo confirmed nor denied that statement, I believed they were honored to have eaten the sandwich that was deemed as a favorite of the current President; and that was good enough for me.
It was late in the day and we had no planned place to hang our hats for the night; at least until Bob finally got a useable signal on his phone and he was able to find a good deal at the Crowne Plaza in Claymont, Delaware; which was very close to our final destination of scheduled Biden sites. Seconds after Mongo reserved our room, flames engulfed a house less than one block from us just as my photographer was about to take me to the Rogue. That fire, which we actually only saw and smelled the smoke, caused another delay as my companions and I watched numerous fire trucks with their sirens blaring arrive at the scene.
It took roughly ten minutes for the excitement to die down before we made our way to the Alexis I. du Pont High School that was located in a small suburb of Wilmington called Greenville, Delaware, which was a little over three miles to the northwest of Capriotti’s. Since it was 6:45pm on a Saturday evening, the three of us didn’t expect the school to be open to visitors, which was disappointing as I wanted to visit the high school gymnasium where Joe Biden made his first public appearance with Kamala Harris on August 12, 2020. As I posed for a few images near the front of the high school, the three of us wondered where the gym was located as Tom wanted to photograph me outside of the gymnasium as well.
Just as we were about to give up on our search for the exterior of the gym, we saw a gentleman walking near the school. Mongo didn’t waste any time and asked Venkata Juturi if he knew where the gymnasium was located. As luck would have it, Juturi once worked at the school, and he led us around to the rear of the huge building where the gym was located. While I posed for a few images outside of the gym, I thought about Biden and Harris as they made their public debut together inside that very building. But I also thought about another famous person who once spent some time in that gym as well. Judge Reinhold, who was an actor in one of my photographer’s favorite movies called ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’, was a student at AI du Pont High through his sophomore year.
When we finished at the high school in Greenville, it seemed from that moment on we were in a race with the sun. There were still three sites left on our agenda, and it was already 7:15pm; in my resin-filled mind, I figured we would lose the race to darkness. But our next stop was less than two miles away and my companions figured it would be a quick visit; especially after I heard my overconfident photographer say to his friend: “How long can it take to find a headstone with the name Biden on it?” Once Tom drove the Rogue into the small cemetery outside of St. Joseph on the Brandywine, which was a Roman Catholic church that served as the place of worship for 46th President Joe Biden when he’s home in Delaware, we began our search. Bob headed out on foot to find the Biden’s graves while Tom drove around in the vehicle, which proved to work better as my photographer found the headstones after only a few minutes of searching.
As Tom carried me towards the area where the three of us saw two gray granite headstones with the name ‘Biden’ etched into them, a sense of sadness filled my resin mind. While the stone on the left marked the graves of Joseph Biden, Sr. and his wife Catherine, the President’s parents who died in 2002 and 2010 respectively; the marker on the right was where Neilia Biden and Naimi Biden were laid to rest. Suddenly, their final resting place began to tug on my resin heart strings. On December 18, 1972, just after Joe Biden became U.S. Senator-elect, Neilia Biden (Joe’s wife) was driving the family station wagon during a Christmas shopping outing with their three children – Beau, Hunter, and Naomi. For a reason that’s unknown, Neilia accidentally drove the vehicle into an intersection and into the path of a tractor-trailor, which caused a horrific collision. Neilia Biden, age 30, and one-year old Naomi, were pronounced dead on arrival at Wilmington General Hospital. Three-year old Beau and two-year old Hunter were critically injured in the crash, but survived. As I stood at Neilia and Naomi’s gravesite, I couldn’t imagine the tremendous sorrow that the future 46th President must’ve endured during that time. It’s never easy for anyone to bury a family member, but Joe Biden had to bury his wife of six years and his infant daughter at the same time; he also had to care for his critically injured sons as they recovered in the hospital. It’s hard to fathom how anyone could cope with that life-altering event, especially just two weeks before being sworn-in as a United States Senator. On January 5, 1973, Joe Biden took the Oath of Office as Senator in a small chapel at the hospital; Beau was wheeled in with his leg still in traction. Hunter had already been released and arrived for the ceremony with extended family members. After learning about the 1972 tragedy that claimed the lives of his wife and infant daughter, I thought to myself: “I never want to hear anyone question Joe Biden’s courage or his character ever again”.
As an enthusiast of the Presidents of the United States, I hold each of the 45 different Commander-in-Chiefs in the highest esteem. But after our visit to the cemetery at St. Joseph on the Brandywine, I gained a greater respect for our current President – Joe Biden. When Tom placed me back into the camera case for the trip to our next site, my head was filled with a hard-to-explain emotion that I hadn’t experienced before. At that moment, a single thought popped into my resin-based hollow skull: “My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.” The silence in the Rogue was broken when my photographer told his friend that we were headed to a “barbecue joint” that was less than four miles away. When I heard where we were headed, another thought immediately filled my head: “How can that guy still be hungry?”
We pulled into the parking lot of the Charcoal Pit in a section of North Wilmington. As it turned out, Vice President Joe Biden brought President Barack Obama to that very restaurant on July 17, 2014 and my photographer wanted me to pose near the same table where the 44th President once stood. After the three of us walked through the front door, Tom explained to the hostess the reason for our visit, which thankfully wasn’t to eat. It took a minute or two, but my camera man was able to match up a few wall hangings with the identical ones captured in a photo of Obama that he had with him. We were in luck; Tom found the exact table, although four college-aged kids were dining there. My photographer showed the group his image of Obama and explained the reason for us being at their table with a camera. When the foursome asked if Tom wanted them to leave their table during the photo-op, my cameraman said he wanted them to be part of the experience as long as they didn’t mind. As I stood on their table with the youngsters gathered around, two things popped into my mind. First, I thought it was extremely cool to stand on the same table where Obama once conversed with patrons in 2014. And second, I thought it was great that one guy was having dinner with three girls.
Sunset in Wilmington, Delaware was at 8:17pm, which was the exact time the three of us walked back to the vehicle after our amazingly cool experience at the Charcoal Pit. The four college kids who allowed me to pose at their table couldn’t have been nicer, but as darkness approached, we had a nine-mile drive to our final site of the day and I was ready to play my “I told ya so” card. The last Biden site of the day was Archmere Academy where the future President not only attended the private Roman Catholic college prep school, but his children also graduated from there as well.
Upon arrival, we quickly discovered that we were out of luck. Every gate to the private school was locked; but when we made our way to the third locked entryway along Manor Avenue, our luck suddenly changed. A man, likely a custodian or security person named Tom, arrived at the gate in a Kubota and asked if he could help us. When my photographer delivered his usual spiel about our Presidential travels and showed him a photograph of the building we had hoped to see, Tom surprisingly obliged. The three of us followed our guide as he blazed a path through the campus until we came to “The Patio” – which to us was the historic centerpiece building at Archmere Academy. Just after we arrived at our destination and my photographer was removing me from the camera case, the “guide” Tom had a couple of simple questions he needed to ask my companions before they took any images: “Are you two Biden supporters? You’re not going to use the pictures to embarrass or discredit President Biden in any way, are you?” When both my photographer and Mongo assured him that our intention was to pay tribute to Joe Biden, as we do with all of the Presidents, he agreed to let us proceed with our mission. I was completely surprised that we were pulling-off the photo-op; the sun had disappeared a half-hour earlier and the twilight made The Patio seemed eerie, especially when my camera guy had me pose on the darkened window ledge. It turned out The Patio was built in 1918 and was once used by John J. Raskob, who not only developed the Empire State Building, he also once served as the Chairman for the Democratic National Committee.
We made it, although barely, as we finished our visit to Archmere Academy. Even though we had only seen The Patio, which was the most historic building on the campus, we couldn’t have asked our guide Tom for anything more. The three of us were honored to have visited the campus where Joe Biden attended high school. In his prep school years from 1958 to ’61, Biden served as class president during his junior and senior years; even though he wasn’t an exceptional student. At Archmere, Biden also played baseball and was a standout halfback as well as a wide receiver on the school’s football team. During our time in front of The Patio, we didn’t realize first base on the baseball diamond was roughly 200 feet behind us. While it would’ve been awesome to have stood on that field to pay tribute to Joe Biden the athlete, the darkness made that impossible. In my mind, I knew our stop at George Read’s grave in New Castle earlier in the day would force me say to my companions: “I told ya so!”
Our generous tour guide led us back to the gate where we took a moment to bid farewell to Tom. On the road again, it didn’t take long to discover that Mongo did a magnificent job picking our hotel for the night as it was only two miles from Archmere Academy. We were registered, unpacked, and in our Crowne Plaza room by 9:10pm. My photographer placed me in my usual spot alongside the TV where I watched him heat up the remaining section of his “Bobbie” in the room’s microwave; but Tom was able to eat only a small section of the leftover sandwich before he discarded the remaining few inches. By 9:30pm, the lights were extinguished and my travel mates were sound asleep within minutes. I knew they were exhausted from a full-day of visiting Joe Biden Presidential sites. As a matter of fact, I was surprised I wasn’t sleepy from Biden my time in Delaware as well. But we weren’t finished with President Biden; not by a long shot. We had Joe’s birthplace still on the agenda and those handful of sites in Scranton, Pennsylvania were only two days away.
Throughout the night, the City of Brotherly Love filled my head. I had never visited Philadelphia before, and I was anxious to see the Cradle of Liberty with my own painted eyes. After all, Philadelphia was where a 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson first made his mark on American history when he took his quill pen in his right hand and began to write: “When in the course of human events.” Roughly 1,300 words later, Jefferson finished with: “We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” I certainly looked forward to standing where Jefferson once stood; looking at the walls that he once gazed at with his own eyes; and paying tribute to Thomas Jefferson where his dream of independence came to fruition. As the night lingered on, I had wondered how many times the word “Biden” was used in this post. The answer? 128 times!
** This post is dedicated to Sam Blumin – General Manager of The Queen! **
