Carter turned 100 Tuesday

Jimmy Carter turned 100 Tuesday. When I think of the former president (Jan. 20, 1977-Jan. 20, 1981) I think of Abraham Lincoln. He is the most selfless man that I have ever met.

I first met Mr. Carter in 1976 while attending a Suburban Newspapers of America conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Carter was governor of Georgia at the time. He was the keynote speaker. I remember I was pleased because I had followed Carter’s career, and like others, I thought he would make his mark in politics.

Carter talked for about 45 minutes, left the stage and came down to the floor and was just standing there. No one was talking with him, so I went up to visit with him.

We talked for several minutes and Carter invited me to the governor’s mansion the next day. The women in the SNA group were invited to his home in an arranged trip the next day. He told me to come out on the bus and we would visit some more.

So I went out and, expecting a lot of people, I was surprised that I was ushered into his office. Mr. Carter called me by my first name and we talked for about an hour. That’s when he told me he was going to declare for a run for the presidency. He said he planned to announce his plan in a month or so. Carter said his polls for the run were positive.

Carter, who was president of the governor’s association told of a meeting of governors in Seattle a couple of months away and said he was going to hold a meeting of Washington Democrats when he was in Seattle and would see that I got an invitation. I could sense that the Carters were down-home type of people.

We got our invitation and went to the Carter meeting in Seattle. Jimmy was on one side of the door and Rosalynn on the other, and called my wife and me by our first names.

If you are going to succeed in politics you must be good at remembering people. We had a nice evening and I was surprised a week later to get an autographed picture of Carter.

I was surprised again after his election to get a call from a campaign worker to see if I would be interested in a government job. I wasn’t.

It was easy to like the Carters. They had been married 77 years when Mrs. Carter passed away a couple of years ago. She was 96.

Mrs. Carter was famous herself, having worked to promote and improve treatment for mental health. She had carried this work and message to well over 100 countries.

Today, President Carter is under hospice care in his hometown, Plains, Georgia. Carter had only a single term. The Iranian hostage crisis and some political trickery cut Carter’s service as president to the single term. However, it wasn’t what Carter did while in office that impressed me, it was what he did afterward. Carter was well known for the work he did while associated with a group building houses for people — pounding nails — so people would have a place to live.

We wish President Carter the best for his long service to the country and his history of helping others.