The elder Cronin wanted his son named after his idol, Common Sense author Thomas Paine, a Revolutionary War hero and Philly transplant. Mom said no.

Mom, a devout Catholic, wanted the baby baptized. Dad, an atheist, said no. They met in the middle: Dad got the name, Mom got the baptism. Amen.

"There was a lot of pressure for Tom to be as Thomas Paine-like as he could be," says his wife, Sandy Dunn, a retired Lower Merion Spanish teacher.

Like his namesake, Cronin is a passionate orator.

When he's firing on all cylinders, "his face turns red and the veins pop out of his neck. I kind of like it," says Ted Kirsch, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers from 1990 to July.

Ironically, Cronin was raised to be a soldier. His stepfather - his parents divorced when he was less than a year old - was a career Air Force officer. Young Tom learned all about guns.

"I had weapons before I had a baseball glove," he recalls. He joined the National Rifle Association and won medals for his target shooting.

After moving around the country every few years, Cronin graduated from high school in Dover, Del., in 1960. At that point, he was ready to enlist in the Marines and go to Vietnam.

Instead, at his father's urging, he moved to Roxborough, where he still resides. The decision wasn't a big hit with Sgt. Stepdad. "I heard he was so ashamed, he told people I was in the CIA," Cronin says.

Over the next three years, he devoured his father's books (including Common Sense), accompanied him to political meetings, met his Quaker friends.

To support himself, he worked at a factory. For fun, he got into boxing. The only white kid in a North Philly boxing gym, he trained with future heavyweight champion Joe Frazier and Bennie Briscoe, among others.

"I was taught that when you get hit, don't get angry," Cronin says. "You'll lose your discipline. Keep a clear head, then move back or to the side." He followed those lessons for the next 40 years.

In 1963, Cronin enrolled at Cheyney State College, a historically black school. (He says he didn't get in anywhere else.) In his freshman year, he was arrested with about 200 other area students at a civil-rights demonstration in Chester.

You always remember your first.

"The cops were beating people and throwing them on a school bus. I got whacked a couple of times and spent three weeks in jail. It was one of my radicalizing experiences."

Faced with seven charges, including aggravated assault and battery with intent to kill, Cronin cut a deal in return for a suspended sentence.

"I look back at my first arrest with great fondness and pride," he says. "Every arrest I've had has been righteous, for causes that needed to be championed and fought for."

Cronin joined the city's workforce in 1970 as an investigator with the Commission on Human Relations. One of the original organizers of District Council 47, he served as president of the local for two years before being elected to the district post in 1980.

James Tate was mayor in 1970, followed by Frank Rizzo, Green, W. Wilson Goode, Rendell and Mayor Street. All Cronin's relationships with Hizzoners have been problematic, to some degree, he says.