Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am pleased to follow my colleague, Senator Feinstein, in tribute to Robert Byrd, whom I always called Leader and who always called me Governor. He was our leader. He was a leader for a long time and will always be that in a very real sense to many of us. I was born in Beckley, WV, just about a dozen miles or so from a community called Sophia, which is where Robert and Erma Byrd once ran a little mom-and-pop supermarket back in the late 1930s, early 1940s. I think he was the butcher. He ran that supermarket and later on, I think, in World War II, he was a welder during the war. As we know, in the late 1940s he had the opportunity to run for the West Virginia Legislature and ran. He was a great fiddler and went around his community, his district, playing the fiddle. He always called himself a hillbilly. Ironically, I was down in the central part of our State just about a month ago and had a chance to attend a picnic for senior citizens, a cookout. A lot of people were there. I was sitting at different tables and walking around. I was sitting at this one table, and I learned this lady sitting to my left was from West Virginia. I said: Where are you from? She said: Sophia. I said: That's right outside of Beckley, where I was born. She said: Yes, I knew Robert and Erma Byrd when they ran that mom- and-pop supermarket. I said: You're kidding. She said: No, I did. I asked her to share some thoughts with me about it, and she did.…”