Jimmy Carter

I have repeated this blog post several times since I first wrote it in 2010.  One of those times was ths past March.

I'm moved to blog once again about our oldest living President, Jimmy Carter, age 95.  He had a number of falls recently, and is having brain surgery this morning to relieve pressure on his brain caused by fluid buildup.

We wish him the best outcome. 

James Earl Carter still lives outside Americus, Georgia in a modest house on a family compound.  At least up to now, he still teaches Sunday School and visitors can come and participate in the class.  (If you do, unpaid plug, you might want to consider this wonderful Bed and Breakfast.

More recently (2015), Carter has been treated for melanoma that spread into his brain. He also has an extensive history of pancreatic cancer, the cancer that Jeopardy host Alex Trebek is receiving treatment for.   


Once again, my post from 2010.


They called him....

The Peanut President

Jimmy Carter has always fascinated me.  He came seemingly out of nowhere, seemed to have what it took to be President, but once he got into office he never succeeded.  Yet, in private life, he has succeeded beyond what may have been his wildest dreams.

What in his upbringing, what in his childhood values, what in his education made this man?

And why has this area of Georgia grown organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and others?  What here was so special?

We are visiting the Americus/Plains area to find out. In this blog entry I am concentrating on Jimmy Carter the man.

This is the house that Jimmy Carter grew up in.

Jimmy Carter grew up outside of Plains, GA in a solidly middle class family.  The actual town, which no longer exists, was called Archery.  The realities of rural life in those days created a childhood of lots of hard physical labor.  His father, loving as he was, did not believe in keeping anything on the farm that did not "pay its own way".   And this was hard farming, although the Carters were rich enough to have tenant farmers.  Still, Jimmy worked side by side with area black farmers, performing distasteful chores such as "mopping cotton".

"Miss Lillian", Jimmy's mother, was a nurse who did not turn anyone away, black or white.

Jimmy's father encouraged Jimmy to work and play alongside of the local black farmers.

The Carters grew cotton, peanuts, and sugar cane.  Student farmers still raise these crops at the homestead today.  They kept goats for meat, and mules to plow the fields.

In this windmill, is the germ of using "alternate energy".  There is nothing new about windpower.

The Plains High School the Carters attended has been closed (as part of consolidating various school districts).  This is a classroom set up the way it would have looked for Jimmy Carter in the 7th grade. Like so many famous people, Jimmy Carter credits a high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, as another great influence on his life.  In 1940 Eleanor Roosevelt invited her to the White House to honor her.  I highly recommend reading about her life.

 This is the outside of the high school.

Plains was the "Big City" for Jimmy Carter.  This is what it looks like today:

One day I hope to return to Americus, and experience the area that shaped this humanitarian.


So sad to see falls impact the life of still another aging great American.