Happy birthday to Jimmy Carter!

[Terabith]

Happy 98th birthday to President Jimmy Carter! He is now the oldest lived president in history, and the one who has had the longest post presidential career.

 

Jimmy Carter is another president who has lived his life according to the Grover Cleveland's motto, "I have always tried to do what is right." Back before he became president, Carter was a young Naval officer, when he accidentally stumbled into events that sound more like the lead up to a movie starring Tom Cruise than a president. In 1952, while working at a nuclear reactor, someone said the words you never want to hear a surgeon or a nuclear engineer say. “Uh oh.” The nuclear reactor was malfunctioning, and someone would have to lead a team into this death trap to prevent meltdown before time ran out. That man was future president Jimmy Carter, who built a life size replica of the malfunctioning reactor on a nearby tennis court so the 24 man team could practice their roles, since they would don protective clothing and be lowered into the reactor for ninety second shifts, because that was as long as the human body could sustain the level of radiation being emitted. They fixed it, but Carter (and presumably the rest of the team) had radioactive urine for six months following the accident. They absorbed thousands of times more radiation than would be considered safe today.

 

Carter once saw a UFO and was so startled he filed a report with the UFO Bureau. He talked about it extensively and swore that once president he would fight to erase stigma associated with UFO sightings, until finally some advisors told him to shut up about the UFOs already, because it made him sound nuts. Of course, recent releases have proved that he was probably right about that, as well.

 

Jimmy Carter also practiced excruciating honesty even about embarrassing things because he felt like it was the best thing for the country. In December 1978, he experienced an attack of painful hemorrhoids that left him bedridden for a day and forced to cancel engagements while doctors decided if they would require surgery. The White House wanted to issue a vague statement saying that the president was indisposed, but Carter felt that that would be bad for the country and create instability in markets, so he insisted on telling the world that his problem was literally a pain in the butt.

 

Jimmy Carter was very concerned about doing what was right for the environment, too. He had solar panels installed on the White House. Ronald Reagan had them removed, because of course he did.

 

Carter nearly torpedoed his political career before it started by giving a series of very frank interviews that was one of the most honest things ever done by a political candidate. He talked about America's flaws. He aired his self doubts and fears. He talked about how his Christian faith made him NOT be afraid of being assassinated. And in an interview with Playboy Magazine, he said that God had forgiven him even though he had committed "lust in his heart." This frank statement alienated the burgeoning evangelical support he was beginning to garner due to his own deeply held faith. Even then, the evangelicals were wary of Carter's liberalism.

 

Carter gave up his naval career to go back to Georgia to save his family’s peanut farm, and he got his start in politics running for the local school board. He was an early supporter of civil rights, which hurt his political career, but as a devout Christian and Sunday School teacher, he believed that it was more important to do the right thing than the popular thing, a belief that he practiced both during his presidency and after it, when he started the Carter Center, which has played an active role in advancing human rights and fighting disease. He has also been extremely active in Habitat for Humanity. He built houses even now, in his 90’s, including being back at it after both cancer and falling and needing stitches on his face. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his “decades of untiring efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

 

I shook his hand in 1997 in Pikeville, Kentucky, when he was there doing blitz building for Habitat.

[kokotg]

Until very recently, he was still teaching Sunday School at his church in Plains whenever he was in town, and staying afterward to pose for pictures with every single person who came to see him (not pictured: me, because I had to stay behind with a tantrumming preschooler who was in no state to meet a former president): 

[Terabith]

Oh, that is so wonderful!!!!

[Beth S]

Thanks for this addition to your series, @Terabith!

[zimom]

I have a few stories to tell about Jimmy Carter, but I realized some provide too much identifying information.   

I once slept in the same cabin as Jimmy Carter.  Obviously, not at the same time.

My parents had close mutual friends with the Carters.

Due to this same connection, it is my understanding that Jimmy Carter is the one that helped cut through massive red tape in the 80s that allowed my mother to obtain medical THC in pill form, to help with the symptoms of chemotherapy.   She was one of only ~8 patients in the country obtaining it legally at the time.  

 

 

[freesia]

I used to go roller skating in Georgetown with Amy Carter and stood behind her ( and the secret service) in line to use the pay phone. She’s my age, and she went to middle school near where I l grew up ( and school with my future classmates.) That’s my claim to fame 😂