Jimmy Carter Reaches the Century Mark

 

by Pa Rock

Witness to History

James Earl Carter, Jr, a man known to the world as Jimmy Carter, today becomes the first former US President to reach one hundred years of age - and he is still pursuing another goal.  Carter has told family members that he wants to live long enough to vote for Kamala Harris for President.

Carter has been in hospice care since February of 2023.

Jimmy Carter was born at the Wise Sanitarium in Plains, Georgia, where his mother (remember Miss Lillian?) worked as a registered nurse, and he thus became the first US President to ever be born in a hospital.  Today he still lives in the house in Plains where he and his late wife, Rosalynn, shared their lives for decades.  

The future 39th US President began his education in the public schools of Plains, Georgia, and went on to graduate from the US Naval Academy in 1946,  While serving as an officer in the Navy, Carter was selected by Admiral Hyman Rickover for training in a unique nuclear submarine program.  

On December 12, 1952, there was an explosion at a nuclear reactor located at Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, Canada.   The blast released radioactive materials into the atmosphere and millions of gallons of radioactive water into the reactor's basement.  There were no reported injuries, but the Canadians needed help in disassembling the reactor's damaged core to prevent the facility from melting down. The United States responded to the request for assistance by sending in 28-year-old naval officer Jimmy Carter who was able to perform the task and prevent a catastrophe.

Carter resigned from the Navy the following year, 1953, after the death of his father, and returned to Plains where he took over the family's peanut business.  From there he eventually worked his way into Democratic politics and served as a Georgia state senator from 1963-1967, governor of Georgia from 1971-1975, and President of the United States 1977-1981. Carter won the White House by defeating the unelected incumbent, Gerald Ford, in the 1976 presidential election, and lost the office to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.  Carter and Gerald Ford went on to become close personal friends after they had both left office.

Highlights of Jimmy Carter's one-term presidency include organizing and overseeing the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, the negotiating and signing of the Panama Canal Treaties, and the establishment of the US Department of Energy and the US Department of Education.  His term as President was fatally hobbled by the Iran Hostage Crisis in which Iran seize 53 American diplomats and citizens on November 4, 1979 and held them captive for 444 days until Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President on January 20, 1981.

But it was after his presidency that Jimmy and Rosalynn became internationally recognized and beloved for their humanitarian work.  The Carters, through the Carter Center in Atlanta as well as through their own physical efforts and travels, helped to combat disease, hunger, and the abuses of totalitarian governments around the globe, and they also spent thousands of hours sawing boards, hammering nails, and painting houses for America's neediest citizens through Habitat for Humanity.   Jimmy and Rosalynn set a very high bar for what former residents of the White House could do for the betterment of mankind.  They were a power couple, and their power was love - for each other and for the rest of us, as well.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were married more than seventy-seven years, another presidential record.  They raised four children, and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren now number twenty-two.  Their legacy is inspiring by every measure!

Happy, happy birthday, Mr. President.  May your day be filled with peace, and love, and joy!

(Personal Note:  I had the privilege of seeing Jimmy Carter once.  It was at the Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, on Friday the 13th of 2009, where he was busy signing copies of his new book and occasionally looking up and smiling at his fans and admirers who were lined up out the door and several blocks down the street.  By that time he had been out of office almost thirty years and his reputation as an international champion of human rights was iron-clad and set in cement. Me and several hundred others stood patiently in the hot Arizona sun for a brief glimpse of the man who was literally a saint among us.)