At the Times-Courier office in downtown Ellijay, we always knew when former president and first lady Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter were about to arrive. First, two black SUVs would park on the curb across from us, then several men in suits would get out and walk around back of Sue’s River Street Kafe and nearby buildings. When the Secret Service agents came back around front with the all clear, a van would pull up and the Carters would debark to go inside.
The passing of the former president last week brought back a lot of memories to Gilmer Countians who saw the Carters or simply heard they were in town. The couple often took a break from their world travels to stay at their vacation home on Turniptown Creek, deep inside the Walnut Mountain community. Many locals also knew them personally.
After Jimmy Carter’s death last week at age 100, I found myself reading up about his life in politics. One of his habits, according to Fox News, was to shake the hand of every passenger on the plane when he flew commercial. It reminded me of the time I crossed the street to take their photo while eating – with his agents’ permission.
The Carters never asked that the restaurant be cleared of other patrons, and a senior resident who author and columnist Celestine Sibley might say had “turned funny” (meaning his mental faculties had begun to fade) approached their table on this occasion. The Secret Service agents moved in to intercept the man, but the former president waved them off and he engaged him in conversation.
How many ex-presidents would have allowed that to happen?
And yet for all his genuineness, the 39th president had plenty of problems while serving. Many will remember the “energy crisis” of 1977, when Americans were advised to keep their thermostats at 68 degrees during winter months, and Carter appeared on TV in a sweater to make the point. However, the look made him appear to be more like Ward Cleaver in “Leave it to Beaver” than presidential.
Whether or not this emboldened Iranian students to seize the American embassy in Tehran in 1979 will be decided by history, but the attempt to rescue them that became a “debacle in the desert” left several of our military men dead. Carter advocated for and OK’d the mission, and took full responsibility for its colossal failure.
The naivete of some in the Carter Administration didn’t help. When press secretary Jody Powell relayed to the ravenous Washington media a humorous story of the president shooing away a swimming rabbit that was fleeing from hunting dogs with his canoe paddle, the upshot became headlines akin to “Killer Rabbit Attacks Helpless President” and the like.
His director of the former Office of Management and Budget, Calhoun banker Bert Lance, was forced to resign from office amid an alleged scandal. Was it truly that, or just that the Gordon County native did banking the old-fashioned way with a handshake instead of dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s during a loan transaction? Again, history will have to decide.
Most interesting was Jimmy Carter’s life after his presidency. According to news reports he was known to fume and argue with the current occupants of the Oval Office through the years and held antipathy toward President Ronald Reagan, who beat him fair and square after Carter’s one term.
And yet, the Carters became ardent advocates for voting rights in other countries – monitoring more than 100 elections in 39 nations, according to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio – and undoubtedly putting their own lives at risk in places where political executions were not uncommon. It took a lot of courage to do that, and I would imagine the cringe factor among Secret Service agents still protecting him on foreign soil was intense.
Last week on January 1, I spent a very cold day at Dollywood on several roller coasters with my 13-year-old grandson, Elijah, whose experience mentored me on each thrilling ride. Still, despite the chilling weather I wouldn’t have missed it for the world (but don’t tell my cardiologist, please). At times, while speeding and swerving all over the fairgrounds and even traveling upside down, I couldn’t help but think of the analogy to the roller-coaster ride of the Carter Administration. Great strides were made for peace in the Middle East, yet many Americans have been perplexed in recent years about why he supported nations whose stated goal was to wipe a neighboring nation (and ally of the United States) off the map.
At a book signing many years ago, I got to meet Jimmy Carter after his book “An Outdoor Journal” was released. Without the money to purchase a copy, the former pastor of Ellijay First Baptist, James Holt, allowed me to take one with a promise to pay later. (I don’t think I ever did. Gulp.) Looking back, every day of my three-year stint as a U.S. Marine was served during the Carter presidency, and during my unit’s last six-month cruise of the Mediterranean Sea with the Navy, senior NCOs constantly trained us and berated us since we were obviously “going in” to rescue our embassy personnel during the Iranian hostage crisis.
It didn’t happen that way, but I was proud – and it felt particularly patriotic – to serve under a president from Georgia. History doesn’t have to be the judge of that.
Mark Millican is a former staff writer for the Daily Citizen.