It was a homecoming of sorts for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. on Thursday as he reminisced about Philadelphia and his friendship with one of its famous sons, the late appeals court judge Edward Becker, “a man who made a big difference in my life.”

Alito spoke at the Community College of Philadelphia, where he received a citizenship award named for Becker, a renowned judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit who died in 2006.

Alito grew up in New Jersey, and even when he served on the Third Circuit his chambers were in Newark. But he was often in Philadelphia, he said, where the Third Circuit was based, and he learned not long ago that when his parents came to America from Italy, they landed in Philadelphia, not Ellis Island.