Less than four years ago I was on my usual train ride to New York from DC when I met Joe Biden. It was, of course, at the Wilmington stop.

The train was fairly empty and when I looked up all I could say was...yo. You are Joe Biden. He said “I am, who are you.”

I told him I was Andrew and that I was going to DC to work on keeping the US in the game when it came to climate and the environment. He asked me if I had worked on the Paris Climate Accord.

I said yes and he immediately said, “I’m sorry, it must be terrible to see something you worked on eliminated for no logical reason.” I didn’t react, i didn’t want him to know how gutted I felt, but I think he knew.

It was clear his small security team wanted him not to travel the whole way to New York with me, but he was talking and they knew to let him talk. So we talked.

I didn’t want to talk about the depression of Paris, so I shifted to college basketball, the Vice President and I are both big Syracuse Orange fans. We talked about the Zone Defense and Jim Boeheim, the legendary Syracuse coach.

As the conversation got to the point where someone needed to transition to end it, he came right back to my point of pain. He looked me in the eye and said,

“I know things are rough but I believe in you, I believe in those you work work with, and together we can fix this country. We have to.”

I asked him if he was planning to run for president and he said “I don’t know Andrew, but if I do it will be to make people believe again in what’s good about America, and themselves.”

Before he walked to the dinning car he asked if we could take a selfie. We did. I’m proud to vote for Joe today. He makes me feel proud of the decency we once had and may have again.