down Church Street, the main drag through Plains, where they have been walking since the 1920s. Carter says this place formed


him, seeding his beliefs about racial equality. His farmhouse youth dur- ing the Great Depression made him unpretentious and frugal. His friends, maybe only half-joking, describe Cart- er as “tight as a tick.” Their one-story house sits behind


HOME Tailed by Secret Service agents, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter walk the half-mile to their home in Plains, Ga., after their weekly dinner with their longtime friend Jill Stuckey. The former first couple, who were born in Plains, returned to the town after leaving the White House in 1981.


preserved as it was in the 1930s, with no electricity or running water. The Jimmy Carter National


Historic Site is essentially the entire town, drawing nearly 70,000 visitors a year and $4


politics — a two-bedroom rancher assessed at $167,000, less than the value of the armored Secret Service vehicles parked outside. Ex-presidents often fly on private


jets, sometimes lent by wealthy friends, but the Carters fly commercial. Stuck- ey says that on a recent flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles, Carter walked up and down the aisle greeting other passengers and taking selfies. “He doesn’t like big shots, and he doesn’t think he’s a big shot,” said Ger- ald Rafshoon, who was Carter’s White House communications director. Plains is a tiny circle of Georgia farmland, a mile in diameter, with its center at the train depot that served as Carter’s 1976 campaign headquarters. About 700 people live here, 150 miles due south of Atlanta, in a place that is a living museum to Carter. The general store, once owned by


Carter’s Uncle Buddy, sells Carter memorabilia and scoops of peanut but- ter ice cream. Carter’s boyhood farm is


million into the county’s economy. Carter has used his post-presiden-


cy to support human rights, global health programs and fair elections worldwide through his Carter Cen- ter, based in Atlanta. He has helped renovate 4,300 homes in 14 countries for Habitat for Humanity, and with his own hammer and tool belt he will be working on homes for low-income people in Indiana later this month. But it is Plains that defines him. After dinner, the Carters step out


of Stuckey’s driveway, with two Secret Service agents walking close behind. Carter’s gait is a little unsteady


these days, three years after a diagnosis of melanoma on his liver and brain. At a 2015 news conference to announce his illness, he seemed to be bidding a stoic farewell, saying he was “per- fectly at ease with whatever comes.” But now, after radiation and che- motherapy, Carter says he is cancer- free.


The Carters walk every day — often


a government-owned fence that once surrounded Richard Nixon’s house in Key Biscayne, Florida. The Carters already have deeded the property to the National Park Service, which will one day turn it into a museum. Their house is dated, but homey


and comfortable, with a rustic living room and a small kitchen. A cooler bearing the presidential seal sits on the floor in the kitchen — Carter says they use it for leftovers. In a remodel not long ago, the cou-


ple knocked down a bedroom wall themselves. “By that time, we had worked with Habitat so much that it was just second-nature,” Rosalynn says.


Rosalynn Carter practices tai chi


and meditates in the mornings, while her husband writes in his study or swims in the pool. He also builds furniture and paints in the garage; the paint is still wet on a portrait of a cardinal that will be their Christmas card this year. They watch Atlanta Braves games


or “Law and Order.” Carter just finished reading “The Innovators” by Walter Isaacson. They have no chef and they cook for themselves, often together. They make their own yogurt. On this summer morning, Rosalynn mixes pancake batter and sprinkles in blueberries grown on their land. Carter cooks them on the griddle. Then he does the dishes.


Reprinted with permission of the Washington Post.


JANUARY 2019 | NEWSMAX 25


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