This weekend at a fundraiser in Piedmont I was standing in the usual line to get my photograph snapped with Joe Biden. I told him that I was planning on giving the picture to my mother, who was in the hospital after a terrible fall. She tumbled down the stairs and broke her right femur and right wrist. As you can imagine, she's been pretty depressed. She's in pain, and her life is going to be dramatically different in the short term and perhaps even in the long term. Joe took my cell phone and called her. "Hey Ricki, this is Joe Biden. I hear you had a fall." He talked to her for about a minute, cheering her immeasurably, and making me sign up for ever after as a foot-soldier in the Biden army.