Yesterday, the 39th President of the United States, and very likely the best ex-president we’ve ever had, Jimmy Carter, died. He made it to 100 years old, won a Nobel Peace Prize, was attacked by a rabbit, led the effort to eliminate a horrible parasitic worm, was the only nuclear engineer to be president, but in my selfish worldview, he’s most important because of two things: first, he’s the only US president I’ve ever met, in person (and in a bathroom), and nextly, he’s only one of two presidents to own an Amphicar.
Yes, I met President Carter! It’s true! I even sort of have photographic evidence, and there’s also some photographic evidence of the Amphicar part, so you can rest assured I’m not making any of this up, as I know I’m wont to do sometimes. In fact, I’ll include a bit about Carter and cars I did make up a few years ago, just in the interest of full disclosure.
Anyway, here’s the picture of Carter, me, and a bunch of other people who were part of Emory University’s student publications department around…1990, I want to say? Maybe ’91?
I was on the staff of the humor magazine, The Spoke, and I wrote for and did political and other cartoons for The Wheel, the student newspaper. Everyone who wasn’t a former president in the picture was involved in some student publication, and, yeah, both sweater guy and I probably could have found a blazer somewhere.
Carter came to Emory to speak every year, because the school was in his home state of Georgia and for other reasons I was never really compelled to look into. But he did, and he was always a great speaker.
I actually got to meet him one-on-one by chance in the bathroom after this photo was taken. President Carter and I were similar in that we both have bladders that occasionally fill with urine, and we periodically choose to decant that urine into something like a urinal, or perhaps against a tree or building side. This time it was a urinal.
After we’d both emptied our bladders and were washing hands, I turned to him at the sink and told him I was a big fan and had all his albums; thankfully, he wasn’t offended and chuckled and shook my hand. I was struck by the fact he wasn’t really much taller than me, and had really clear blue eyes. He was a very kind, humble, approachable man.
In hindsight, it’s all the more incredible, when you think about it. He didn’t have a very intense secret service detail; I think there were a couple agents with him, but they sure didn’t follow him everywhere, like in the bathroom.
So, that’s the extent of my meeting a president: close to urinals, made a dumb joke.
Now, for the important automotive part: Carter is one of only two presidents to own an Amphicar. The most famous of which is, of course, Lyndon Johnson, because he used to like to prank people by pretending the brakes of the Amphicar were out, then driving full speed into a lake or whatever.
But that’s not Carter’s style. Carter seemed to just enjoy his mint-colored Amphicar and wasn’t interested in scaring the shit out of the people who chose to ride with him. I suspect he approached every lakeshore gingerly and explained to everyone that now they’d be making a bold transition from land to water, looking understandingly at his three passengers. Something like that.
Also, I want to know who owned the sex-van back there? I bet it was his brother, Billy. That feels on-brand.
Okay, here’s the lie I told about Jimmy Carter and cars: he used a Chevette Scooter as his inauguration vehicle, and it broke down in the middle of the parade route.
I was playing on the idea of the energy crisis that was going on during the Carter Administration, because that was a big deal. We had the usually-hated 55 mph speed limit, Carter had solar water heaters installed on the White House, and he generally practiced what he preached when it came to energy conservation, so it seemed just plausible enough that he’d choose the cheapest Malaise-era car for his inauguration, a Chevette Scooter. And it seemed plausible it’d break down halfway.
Of course, that’s not what actually happened. What actually happened was even more unexpected, and showed that Carter literally walked the walk when it came to conserving energy, because he was the first president to get out of his vehicle and walk the parade route:
It’s also worth noting for all of you automotive journalism geeks that Carter was also the president that inspired the legendary Murilee Martin’s coining of the phrase “Malaise Era,” referring to the fiercely lackluster cars America was farting out in the mid-to-late 1970s. Here’s the speech that the use of “malaise” came from:
Jimmy Carter’s presidency may have only been one term, and maybe that lone term wasn’t everything anyone hoped for, but he remains one of the most intelligent and kind people to ever hold the office, and his post-presidential works remain the standard by which every other president will be judged.
Rest in peace, President Carter.
Never had the pleasure of seeing, much less meeting, President Carter, but following behind Nixon then Ford, he was a breath of fresh air. Too bad he didn’t get a 2nd term, losing through what I consider dirty politics. Instead we got trickle down economics with no trickle down, and started down the road of the rich getting richer, oh so much richer.
RIP to a good president and a great person. He had really difficult circumstances to deal with during his term and I believe he did the best he could, all while staying humble and down-to-earth. And the sheer amount of things he accomplished in his post-presidency era is nothing short of admirable.
How did the Autopian forget Jimmy Carter appeared in the movie “Used Cars”?
Carter got interrupted when they hijacked a tv broadcast.
He was a good person.
You have not met Musk?
I’ve heard the story of Lyndon Johnson and his Amphicar fake-out before. If someone couldn’t see that the car was also a boat just by looking at it, they deserved to be scared.
I think people would play along lest Johnson let Jumbo out to prove his power.
The retrospective view on Presidents always fascinates me. How time changes perceptions of the people and their actions.
Carter was President during a very challenging time for the United States and the world. The fiber of a person shines through under those conditions, even if they weren’t viewed as successful at the time.
A better man than a President perhaps, but that’s a high bar given the good man he was.
Honestly, I don’t think many will live up to that bar. A shame, really, as I’d like to think the highest office in the land should inspire the best of people to it and for the citizenry to recognize that goodness.
As a kid watching the news about a nuclear reactor melting down 11 miles from my front door. (Three Mile Island in 1979) I was relieved when he showed up and had great knowledge of nuclear reactors. https://www.military.com/history/how-jimmy-carter-saved-canadian-nuclear-reactor-after-meltdown.html.
I would take, every day, a president who would lower himself into a failing nuclear reactor versus one who walks in on pageant contestants.
Too hard to grab a nuclear reactor by the pussy.
Just saying. /s
I never met either of the Carters face to face, but I did photograph both of them as a newspaper photographer… Jimmy, campaigning in 1976 in San Diego and years later, Roslynn riding an adult tricycle through a relatively new solar home subdivision in Davis, CA. The picture of Roslynn ended up on the cover of the Sierra Club Bulletin a couple of months later.
His term was a tough time economically, especially towards the end of it. Double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates and an oil shortage doomed his chances at a second term.
His job performance while in the Oval Office is something people can debate, but his continuing service afterwards was exemplary.
RIP
Best person to server as president, not really best at the job, but there’s not really a high bar so maybe he did ok.
Carter’s the only one I can think of that actually kept doing humanitarian stuff, the rest either took up painting or got paid to speak about things. Like the humanitarian stuff was Carter’s gig, nobody else wants to horn in on it, but it’s ok, we can have multiple ex-presidents doing humanitarian work.
Well, let’s not forget his erroneous appointment of Joan Claybrook as the head of National Highway Safety (sic) Traffic Administration. The automotive manufacturers were aghast at this appointment as she didn’t know nut from bolt.
She came up with 85-mph speedometer, which was widely derided and overturned in 1982. Ms Claybrook also resisted the adoption of halogen bulbs of headlamps, citing the improved output would “encourage” the drivers to drive faster and be reckless.
Who else forget the sight of Jimmy Carter wrapped up in thick sweater and asked his “fellow Americans” to turn the thermostats no higher than 65°F in the winter and lower than 78°F in the summer?
Sorry, Jimmy Carter is one of the worst and most useless presidents…
“Who else forget the sight of Jimmy Carter wrapped up in thick sweater and asked his “fellow Americans” to turn the thermostats no higher than 65°F in the winter and lower than 78°F in the summer?
Sorry, Jimmy Carter is one of the worst and most useless presidents…”
Perhaps if Americans had complied with his guidance and put on a damn sweater themselves instead of whining like spoiled children the world would be in less of a climate mess today.
“An Energy Department aide said the restrictions saved an estimated $4.5 billion, or about 123 million barrels of imported oil.”
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/02/18/The-Jimmy-Carter-thermostat-control-program-that-saved-about/4531351320400/
And that was just the thermostats in public buildings. Imagine how much oil could have been saved had everyone just worn a damn sweater or short sleeves.
I set my own A/C at 76°F in the summer, but once you get cold enough you need gloves and that completely ruins my dexterity, never mind how much more water and laundry needs to be done for thick, warm clothes. And I can’t exactly wash dishes with winter gloves, either.
My hands feel freezing at times and my apartment is set at 68°F right now. Hoping in a few years to comfortably afford moving up to 70°F.
For sure a few extra degrees are needed by some. I think today a lot of large buildings are well insulated and use cogen power so it makes no difference what the heat is set to as long as it utilizes heat that would otherwise go to waste. Heat pumps are also pretty energy efficient.
My criticism was more for the days of inefficient heating/cooling systems in poorly insulated buildings powered exclusively by fossil fuels. One thing Jimmy Carter did right was try to do was to wean America off fossil fuels.
Totally fair points.
I was caught up in thinking you were some kind of, well, y’know.
Hippie?
You might have Raynaud’s disease. After years of suffering with cold hands and feet when it wasn’t that cold, a good doc diagnosed it. Not much you can do about it, but knowing why helped.
We actually just re-elected one of the worst, most useless presidents ever. Carter actually tried to drag this country into the future and made proposals that made sense. It’s just that, as Cheap Bastard mentions, Americans are too selfish to think about the future. So they replaced Carter with a corporate puppet and then worshipped him as if he cared two shits about them.
What’s the issue with the thermostat thing? That is a simple way to save oil and money, 2 things we needed to do during that era.
Someone had to make the dumbest comment of the day and Eric obliged.
That was objectively a good joke, especially from a guy your age.
He pushed for the right turn on red rule, which I think was a big positive change. That’s being eliminated in the city I work in – now you have to wait for a green to turn right – and that makes it so cars and pedestrians have no choice but to share a crosswalk. Which I think is unsafe.
I’m old enough to remember part of his administration. My parents were conservatives and didn’t like him. They didn’t hate him, they just didn’t like him. And he was there during bad inflation, which didn’t help him against Reagan in 1980.
Right-turn-on-red is awesome. He sure worked hard and long after his presidency to help people. And making it to 100 is a real accomplishment. Rest in peace, Mr. President.
> [eliminating right on red requires] you have to wait for a green to turn right – and that makes it so cars and pedestrians have no choice but to share a crosswalk
How does this force cars and pedestrians to share the crosswalk? Maybe I’m missing something, but won’t cars just stop before the crosswalk?
I mean the crosswalk on the side street that you’re turning onto. When the light in ahead of you is red, the crosswalk to your right is in “Don’t Walk” state. Your light goes green and the crosswalk does to “Walk” state. And you have to dodge pedestrians to turn right.
Interesting … where I’m from, most of the lights I’ve seen now protect pedestrians in these situations by keeping the light red (prohibiting the right turn) and giving the pedestrians the “walk” sign. (At least at intersections where there is a button for pedestrians to push.)
Also, the “no right on red” permits protected left turns from the opposite direction.
I don’t get these no right on red people.
Right on reds save time, fuel and lead to lower emissions which means fewer pollution that pedestrians breathe in saving lives.