Vol. 3: Dispatch from Plains
A massive peanut, Jimmy Carter, sorcerers, etc.
The first thing you see when driving on Highway 45 into Plains, Georgia is a 13-foot styrofoam peanut. It stands in front of a dilapidated gas station, its mouth, lips, and teeth — yes, the peanut has a mouth, lips, and teeth — twisted into a broad Cheshire cat grin. The peanut does not have eyes.
This is the “Smiling Peanut,” created in 1976 as part of Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign.
The Smiling Peanut — which was built in Indiana — is perhaps the strangest homage to the former president in his hometown, but it’s a fitting one. Plains, two-and-a-half hours south of Atlanta, is peanut country and Jimmy Carter is the peanut farmer president. If you were to head from the Smiling Peanut to the farm Carter grew up on, a few miles south, you’d see peanut fields, peanut yard decorations, and a shop that sells, among other peanut confectionaries, peanut butter ice cream. This time of year the streets are littered with peanut shells fallen off the backs of peanut trucks heading to and from the peanut processing plant.
I was sent by my newspaper to Plains, a town of about 550 people, after the announcement in late February that Carter would be spending his remaining days in hospice in his hometown. Carter and his wife Rosalyn live in a two-bedroom ranch house they built there in 1961.
What’s striking about Plains is its relationship, and its residents’ relationships, to Carter. Everybody has a story about “Mr. Jimmy.” He shopped at the Dollar General. He got his hair cut by Soapy the barber in Americus, the town over. He taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church. (Maranatha started in 1977 after splitting from Plains Baptist Church, which had voted against allowing Black people to join.)
The way residents spoke of Carter with such warmth and familiarity made me feel almost as if I knew him too – the painter, poet, and woodworker down the street who just so happened to be a Nobel Peace Prize winner and one-time leader of the free world.
In addition to peanuts aplenty, there’s a Jimmy Carter quote I noticed a few times in town:
“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something… My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”
Mr. Jimmy has certainly made a difference.
Here are some photos (click for full size) I took during my stay in Plains and Americus. (And more on Instagram.)
What I’m reading
I am forever trying to become a better reader. In the last edition of this newsletter I talked about giving The Wheel of Time epic fantasy series another shot, as I’ve been wanting to read more fiction. I read the first five books in high school.
So far so good. I’m now on the third book of 14, each one coming in at around 800 pages. I don’t know if I’ll be able to maintain enough interest to finish them all, but I think I will try. (After all, I made it through something like seven seasons of True Blood, eight seasons of Monk, eight seasons of Psych, and five seasons of Chuck in 2020.)
I’m also close to finishing the Audible version of Jon Meacham’s And There Was Light, a new biography of Abraham Lincoln. I’m surprised at the parallels between the conflict-ridden nation Lincoln presided over and our own. It’s particularly interesting to read about the Civil War as a new-ish resident of the South, where vestiges of the war still loom large.
In Plains I bought a signed copy of Jimmy Carter’s A Full Life: Reflections at 90. A cute tidbit from the early chapters: He was neighbors with Rosalyn, and he met her when he was three and she was a newborn.
I also bought a self-help book, through my Audible subscription, called The Confident Mind by Nate Zinsser. I find these kinds of books, though sometimes hokey, to be good motivation, particularly as I navigate a new and challenging career in my 30s. I need all the confidence I can get.
Overall I’m happy with my reading life so far this year. I’m spending less time watching TV and more time reading… even if it’s reading about sorcerers.
Until next time.