Day 145: the good, the bad and the ugly

Almost 36 years ago, Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as the nation's 39th President. And while his four years in office are not considered stellar in the minds of many historians, there's little doubt that he is perhaps the most decent man to ever work in the Oval Office. He was born and raised in rural, agricultural southwest Georgia, where he continues to make his home. The town of Plains was home to just 700 residents when he made his successful campaign in 1976. Today, the Jimmy Carter national historic site encompasses many spots in the town, including his boyhood farm and his high school (deactivated in 1979) that serves as the visitor center.

Both Jimmy and Rosalynn (his wife of 65 years) faithfully attend their local church, which is so small that the congregation handles its janitorial duties; the Carters take their turn every couple of months, raking, mowing, cleaning toilets, etc. And Jimmy teaches children's Sunday School nearly every week, inviting any visiting kids to join him for the class and lots of photos afterward. His faith is a guiding force in his life, one that prompted him to leave a very successful career in the Navy (he's a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and was an engineer in the nuclear submarine program). The difficult decision to leave the exciting life of the Navy and return to Plains was made following the death of his father; so many people approached Jimmy about the profound impact his father had made on their lives, and he reflected that he'd rather make a deep impact in small circles than travel in wide circles with a shallower impression. Rosalynn was not of the same mind, and struggled mightily that first year back in Plains, especially as their annual income from peanut farming didn't reach $200.

Jimmy's political career began on the school board and took him to the Georgia governor's chair before he reached for D.C. His passion for education stuck...he created the Department of Education (and the Energy Dept) while in office. Perhaps his most notable achievement was the peace deal he brokered between Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachim Begin in 1978. But high inflation, a bad economy and the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran lead to his defeat in the 1980 election. His final act in office, literally his last hours in Washington D.C., was the successful negotiation of the 66 hostages' release. His post-Presidency years have been more acclaimed: his work as a peace ambassador and with Habitat for Humanity have lessened the negative overtones associated with his time in Office.
We were struck by the irony of our next stop--Andersonville National Historic Site--the Confederate POW camp in which 13,000 Union troops (of the 45,000 who passed through its gates) died.  The 16 1/2 acre site was designed for no more than 10,000 inmates, yet it held 33,000 men at a given time. The interred begged for President Lincoln and General Grant to exchange them for Confederate prisoners, but their request was denied; freed Confederates would return to their army and delay the end of the war. The conditions in Andersonville were indescribably horrible...rampant disease, starvation, murder, exposure. Prisoners died in such huge numbers that burial was done in trenches, body placement marked only by numbered stakes. Thanks to the illicit copies of death records made by a prisoner who worked in the medical ward, he and Clara Barton were able to arrange for the proper marking of all but 460 graves (marked as "Unknown U.S. Soldier").

The Andersonville site is now home to the National Prisoner of War Musuem, dedicated to POWs from the Civil War through the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was touching to see the familiar black flag, symbolizing the POW, knowing it was designed Newt Heisley, a gifted graphic artist who was a member of the First Pres CS community. The museum is both powerful and stark in its presentation of statistics and artifacts. We're glad that its somber theme was somewhat balanced by our inspiring time at the Jimmy Carter NHS.

Kelsey demonstrates the harvesting of peanuts, a member of the legume family.

The Carter family also farmed cotton, shown here in its puffy, ready-to-harvest state.

The Plains depot was the headquarters for Carter's Presidential campaign. It was selected over other empty structures in the area because it had a working bathroom!

The Carter Family Farm's front porch has rockers and a porch swing. The house itself was without electricity or running water for the first few years of the family's life there.

Jimmy's handprints are in the house's sidewalk.

A rebuilt gate in the 15-ft-tall stockade walls of the Andersonville prison. The conditions within its walls had reached abhorent conditions when a raging rainstorm brought cleansing waters rushing through the camp, knocking out a section of the fence. A lightning strike in that same storm is said to have opened up a plentiful spring of fresh, clear water within the camp lines...just when the fetid gully of muddy water that had supplied the camp began to slow. The new spring, named Providence, saved thousands of lives and is now enclosed in a sort of shrine.

lines of thousands...gravestones in every direction