RIP Jimmy Carter, The Only President I Ever Met, And He Had An Amphicar!

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.