President Carter

[Edgy MD]

Fun James Earl Carter, Jr., Trivia: How old was his wife they first met?

Answer: About 10 minutes. Jimmy's mother was a nurse who delivered Rosalynn while three year-old Jimmy waited in the next room. When the delivery was complete, he was invited in to say hello to his future wife of 76 years.

Some accounts say it was a few days later, but I prefer the 10-minute version.

[whippoorwill]

Nice picture!

[kcmets]

Nice story, be it ten minutes or even a few days...

I have two good friends (well, we were good before America was Made not so
Great) who are still happily married to their childhood sweethearts. Now we only
see each other at wakes and weddings.

[Edgy MD]

About 10 years ago, the The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library commemorated the 150th year of The Gettysburg Address by soliciting essays on the Address from persons with different perspectives, including presidents, poets, and sailors aboard the USS Lincoln. To keep the endeavor in the spirit of what they were honoring, they asked that all the essays be limited to 272 words — the length of Lincoln's comments — as well as be written in their own hands, as Lincoln's was.

As the pen feels more foreign in the human hand every year, the exhibit (redundantly titled "272 Words: The Power of Words") made some exceptions, including some elderly persons who might not have written more than their name with a pen in decades. One of these exceptions was President Carter, but being President Carter, he didn't type his comments on a computer, but on a typewriter.

　　　　　　

[kcmets]

It was hard to be a Carter in high school. The country wasn't all that
happy with our president. The peanut jokes and Billy Beer. Hah, remember
that? I have a few unopened cans in a box some where. Maybe they'll be
worth something. There was a bad show on TV called Carter Country. And
there was still left over guff from Welcome Back Carter. I know, but it was
a thing. KC and the Sunshine Band was churning out pop hits. I had it all.

Guess it was better than being a McGovern or a Mondale...

That said, I've become a huge admirer of Jimmy. He has set the new post-
presidency high bar that I certainly will never see eclipsed at my age.

[MFS62]

A few years ago, I had a call from a customer in Plains, Georgia.
I asked him if he knew Jimmy Carter.
He went on to tell me that his family had lived in Plains for generations and all 36 of them had at one time either heard Jimmy preach or teach Sunday School.
He then talked about what a kind and generous and genuinely nice person Jimmy was.
I'll never forget that personal tribute from someone who knew him well.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

Despite the official moniker of James Earl Carter Jr., he chose to be inaugurated as 'Jimmy' Carter
Guess he was going for the down home folksy vote.

[Edgy MD]

Despite a depression-era childhood that had its share of poverty, President Carter amazingly was the first US head of state born in a hospital.

[cal sharpie]

He was the first person I ever voted for for President.

[Edgy MD]

[Edgy MD]

He was only 28 when his training in the US Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program made him one of the few people qualified to assist when a partial meltdown occurred in at a plant in Deep River Ontario. The Navy loaned him and his crew out to Canada, where they shut down the plant by taking turns being lowered into the reactor for 90 seconds at a time. His urine tested as radioactive for six months after.

His experience not only makes him something of a hero in Canada, it's largely seen as a reason the U.S. neutron bomb program was put on hold in the late seventies before ultimately being shuttered in 1992.

[Lefty Specialist]

Although he's often described as a 'failed' president, getting that peace deal between Israel and Egypt (which has held for 45 years) was enormous.

Lots of politicians claim they're Christians. Carter really acted like one.

[Frayed Knot]

His experience not only makes him something of a hero in Canada, it's largely seen as a reason the U.S. neutron bomb program was put on hold in the late seventies before ultimately being shuttered in 1992.

It also made him the centerpiece for probably the best skit SNL ever did, 'The Pepsi Syndrome'. Dan Akroyd played the then President who kept saying "I'm a nuclear engineer" when investigating the incident at 'Two Mile Island' only to wind up 80 ft tall as a result of his exposure.

[Edgy MD]

I'm very likely to be wrong, but I remember that sketch being so long that it had a commercial break in the middle. I also have heard it described under three different names: "Two-Mile Island," "The Amazing Colossal President," and "The Pepsi Syndrome."

The president's press conference brought on "special comic guest spokesperson" Rodney Dangerfield to describe just how big the president had gotten ("I'm telling you — this man could have an affair with the Lincoln Tunnel!") when Rodney's mid-life return to comedy was just gaining traction.

[RealityChuck]

He took classes at my Alma Mater when he was stationed here in Schenectady. The college didn't keep records of it because he was nonmatriculed, but there's no reason to doubt his claim.

What I find most amazing is his fight against the Guinea worm, going from 3.5 million cases a year to 13 last year.

[Frayed Knot]

The best part about that Dangerfield appearance was that it was a total surprise. He wasn't the host that night (Richard Benjamin was) nor was there any prior hint that he even might be on.
So just just him being announced via the skit's 'press conference' in the midst of, as you mentioned, his second career resurgence, was enough to being the house down. He then did his three
or four one-liners, explaining to Rosalyn (Lorraine Newman) just how big the President had become in his usual neurotic style ('Oh I wanna tell you lady he's big' ...) then walked off just as
quickly as he had appeared.
The skit also featured a major Baba Wawa contribution featuring lines mentioning that the Pwesident has been exposed to wethal wevels of wadiation and that the pwess conference was
about to begin so, wet's wisten in. And then there was Garrett Morris.

[Edgy MD]

He took classes at my Alma Mater when he was stationed here in Schenectady. The college didn't keep records of it because he was nonmatriculed, but there's no reason to doubt his claim.

What I find most amazing is his fight against the Guinea worm, going from 3.5 million cases a year to 13 last year.

Yeah, Rosalynn kept a home in Schenectady during his naval deployments, and they lived there together when he was stateside, intending to stay, but when his father died, they headed back to Georgia* to save the family farm, and even moved into public housing while he boned up on agriculture.

It's generally understood that President Clinton was by far the least wealthy American head of state coming into office in a long time, but President Carter, who had attained some meaningful land wealth by the time of his ascendancy, had been through a lot of lean times.

* Although, according to President Trump, it's unbelievable that anybody who leaves Georgia would move back.

[whippoorwill]

*well, Trump is a dick

[Edgy MD]

President Carter Rudy'd his way into the US Naval Academy, enrolling first at Georgia Southwestern College, transferring after one year to Georgia Tech, before ultimately landing at Annapolis, which had been his goal all along.

He was and remains the first and only USNA grad to achieve the nation's highest office. That made be hard to hear, David Robinson, but it's the truth.

[Frayed Knot]

The old buzzard's still hanging in there. Reports from a relative over the weekend say that he's still "talking and eating".
It's the lack of that second part, those either unable or unwilling to eat, that tends to send things spiraling downhill quickly.

[Edgy MD]

President Carter is currently one of only two living persons with a US Navy vessel named for them — the vessel in question being (naturally) the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23), the third and final Seawolf-class nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine in the US fleet.



The honor is shared by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, for whom the Navy has christened an Independence-class littoral combat ship.

[Frayed Knot]

Looks like the post-TMI Radiation Jimmy Carter really could make love to the Lincoln Tunnel just like Rodney Dangerfield suggested.

I wonder if someone was thinking of that skit during the naming process?

[Edgy MD]

Jimmy Carter's first election to public office was for an open Georgia Senate seat, which he initially lost but successfully won in a re-vote, after successfully accusing his opponent of engineering voter fraud.

[Chad ochoseis]

He was the first person I ever voted for for President.

I'm proud to say that I was one of only four kids in Mr. Rosenberg's 7th grade social studies class's mock Democratic convention who supported Jimmy on the first ballot. After several ballots, Rosenberg broke us up and told us we had to join one of the delegations that had a chance of winning. I went with Scoop Jackson, who ultimately lost to Fred Harris when Tony F. bribed Mike L. with a Scooter Pie to switch sides, breaking a 14-14 deadlock.

Rosenberg, of course, noted that that was pretty much how backroom politics works.

Fred Harris is the only other surviving candidate from the 1976 primary.

[Edgy MD]

That's not as unsettling as Lunchie's 1972 class lesson in electoral politics, but it's impressive nonetheless.