When Bethlehem Press editor George Taylor asked if I would be interested in following up on an email request from British newsman Tom Newton Dunn, who was asking to meet to discuss the upcoming presidential election, I was definitely interested in assisting Newton Dunn.

Bethlehem is a democratic stronghold in Northampton County, which has become a bellwether County, where the vote has become a microcosm for predicting recent presidential election results.

Originally scheduled to meet up early the morning of July 15 in front of the Hotel Bethlehem, Newton Dunn contacted me late Sunday night to reschedule to later in the day on Monday.

He and cameraman James Fletcher had been in attendance at the Donald Trump rally in Butler, Pa., and they were delayed coming to Bethlehem. They had witnessed the assassination attempt on the former President.

“When the first shots rang out, there was silence. Then the screaming started,” Newton Dunn reported in a column written for the London Times.

“A few seconds later people started to turn and run,” reported Newton Dunn. “Others remained where they stood, trying to see what happened, taking out their phones to film.”

Comparatively speaking, the roughly two hours we spent together on Monday afternoon the next day were light years away from the prior day’s history-making event.

After introductions in the Hotel Bethlehem lobby, and introducing him to Hotel Bethlehem managing partner Bruce Haines, Newton Dunn showed me a photo of a Bethlehem viewpoint and we headed off in a rental car driven by Fletcher. We drove to Hayes Street on the Southside, near the top, where the vista encompasses the now cold former Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces.

Along the way I pointed out landmarks like the one time Bethlehem Steel office buildings on East Third Street and the one-time railroad right of way that is now the Southside Greenway.

We set up just below Mountain Drive as traffic passed by and the interview began. Questions about my personal history as a lifetime city resident, Bethlehem Steel’s impact on the city, the influence of unions, and the swing of once more dominant Democratic Party voting in Northampton County to a more purple vote were posed by Newton Dunn as Fletcher filmed us.

When we finished we drove to SteelStacks for some additional filming and then stopped at the Wooden Match Bar & Grill, a former train depot for the Jersey Central Railroad. Earlier I had explained my memory of my late father returning home after serving during the Korean War. He had arrived at that station and I was 2 years old. Additional filming of the inactive weed covered tracks was underway by Fletcher when Newton Dunn informed me that Trump had selected Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate and asked for my thoughts.

We ended back at the Hotel Bethlehem, and it was in the Hotel’s garage that I asked both newsmen what they and the British were thinking about the faceoff between Biden and Trump. “Much like what you Americans are,” said Newton Dunn. “We are bemused.”

The next day they were heading to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention.