"And Corn Pop was a bad dude. And he ran a bunch of bad boys. And I did 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 bathing 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."
― Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (words & music)
― Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (words & music)
"He was waiting for me with three guys with straight razors. Not a joke. There was a guy named Bill Wright, 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."
"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?" 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."