And Now, Another Episode of "Grampa Joe's Corny Old-Timey Half-Remembered Lies"

This is as true as it gets, friends.

A newly surfaced video clip from 2017 shows Joe Biden recounting a bizarre alleged incident in which he deftly avoided a razor-and-chain fight with a gang leader named Corn Pop, when Biden was serving as the only white lifeguard at a predominately black Delaware pool in the summer of 1962.

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"I learned a lot. And I learned that it makes a difference," Biden said in the 2017 video clip, which documented the ceremony in which the Brown-Burton-Winchester Park was renamed the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Aquatic Center.

"This was the diving board area, and I was one of the guards, and they weren't allowed to -- it was a 3-meter board. And if you fell off sideways, you landed on the damn, er, darn cement over there," Biden said.

Some members of the crowd laughed, apparently at Biden correcting his language, as a small gathering of black children surrounding Biden looked ahead, seemingly disinterested.

"And Corn Pop was a bad dude. And he ran a bunch of bad boys. And back in those days -- to show how things have changed -- one of the things you had to use, if you used Pomade in your hair, you had to wear a baby cap. And so he was up on the board and wouldn't listen to me. I said, 'Hey, Esther, you! Off the board, or I'll come up and drag you off.' Well, he came off, and he said, 'I'll meet you outside.'"

Biden's comments were a reference to competitive swimmer-turned actress Esther Williams, who died in 2013.

"My car was mostly, these were all public housing behind us," Biden continued. "My car - there was a gate on here. I parked my car outside the gate. And he said, 'I'll be waiting for you. He was waiting for me with three guys with straight razors. Not a joke. There was a guy named Bill Wright the only white guy and he did all the pools. He was a mechanic. And I said, 'What am I gonna do?' And he said. 'Come down here in the basement, where all the mechanics- - where all the pool builder is.' You know the chain, there used to be a chain that went across the deep end. And he cut off a six-foot length of chain, and folded it up and he said, 'You walk out with that chain, and you walk to the car and say, 'you may cut me man, but I'm gonna wrap this chain around your head.'"

Biden continued: "I said, 'You're kidding me.'" He said, 'No if you don't, don't come back.' And he was right. So I walked out with the chain. And I walked up to my car. And in those days, you remember the straight razors, you had to bang 'em on the curb, gettin' em rusty, puttin' em in the rain barrel, gettin' em rusty? And I looked at him, but I was smart, then. I said, 'First of all,' I said, 'when I tell you to get off the board, you get off the board, and I'll kick you out again, but I shouldn't have called you Esther Williams, and I apologize for that. I apologize.' But I didn't know that apology was gonna work."

"He said, 'you apologize to me?'" Biden went on. "I said, 'I apologize but not for throwing you out, but I apologize for what I said.' He said, 'OK,' closed that straight razor, and my heart began to beat again."

News has come out that there was indeed a guy calling himself "Corn Pop" alive at that time, and there was a gang called "The Romans."

But the rest of the story seems... well, Bidenesque. This twitter user cast doubt on a lot of the story, highlighting Biden's claim that many of the blacks at the pool had never spoken to a white person before.

He points out that whites made up 73% of the county, making this claim highly dubious.

I'm not sure if I believe that Joe Biden almost had a chain and knife fight which was later defused by mutual recognition of each other's humanity.

Because I think I saw that happen in "Beat It."

posted by Ace of Spades at 04:06 PM

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