January 10, 2025
"Yes, they spent 4 years in the governor's mansion and 4 years at the White House, but the other 92 years, they spent at home in Plains, Georgia."
"And one of the best ways to demonstrate that they're regular folks is to take them by that home. First of all, it looks like they might have built it themselves. Second of all, my grandfather was likely to show up at the door in some 70s short shorts and crocs. And then you'd walk in the house and it was like thousands of other grandparents' house all across the South. Fishing trophies on the walls. The refrigerator, of course, was papered with pictures of grandchildren and then great grandchildren. Their main phone, of course, had a cord and was stuck to the wall in the kitchen like a museum piece. And demonstrating their Depression Era roots, they had a little rack next to the sink where they would hang Ziploc bags to dry...."
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38 comments:
So they loved their plantation.
"...a cord and stuck to the wall"
What I'm experiencing these days is that such phrases are not seen as some kind of mystique and how 'hard' we may have had it, but how stupid we were back then.
The great depression sure did fuck with people's heads, dinnit? How much money on heated water, sponges &/or toothbrushes did they burn while salvaging disposable Ziploc bags? Did they ever have food poisoning and discover the cause? I suspect they lost out on that economic equation. The kids will have some fun with a treasure hunt for the buried mason jars full of silver coins before the estate sale, though...
I watched this a couple of times, what a lovely, lovely eulogy.
serious question: how Rich was Jimmy Carter?
the media "says" "only" Ten Million.. which is "not much" compared to many grifters.. Oops i mean many Presidents
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_net_worth
Is this a swipe at the Clintons and Obamas?
I recall for both Reagan and W; there were often complaints that the President was "vacationing" at their residences in California and Texas respectively. In reality, they simply were at their home and often working. Just as an example, W's surprise trip to Iraq originated when people thought he was vacationing at his home in Texas.
I accept the right sometimes poked at Obamas vacationing in Hawaii or Biden at his home. I do think it is unfair all around if that is their home. In the case of the Obama's they usually weren't at "their home" in Hawaii, but staying at some donors location. As for Biden, I think it was about like W, but there is the question of whether Biden was ever really working.
To keep this more on topic with Carter; I think he did less harm to Americans when he was at his home in Georgia. I think mostly the same for all Presidents though.
He spent some time away from Plains in the Navy, too, didn't he?
But that's what a closed refrigerator is for.
As I noted in a previous comment, Jimmy Carter was a Deplorable. He grew up in the middle of nowhere, in a house with no plumbing, electricity, or insulation. His politics were far closer to Donald Trump’s than, say, Ronald Reagan’s. Both wings of the Washington Establishment considered him beneath their dignity.
My mother, age 76, grew up until her early teens in a home without an indoor toilet. My father, I think, didn't have a personal toilet to piss in until he and my mother got their first apartment together in 1965. My mother's childhood home still exists (owned by her only sibling) and, while it was heavily remodeled at various times after my mother's marriage, it is still mostly resembles what it looked like when I was a child visiting my grandparents.
I am not a depression era baby but I still wash and save my ziplock bags. They are too expensive to just toss after 1 use. Only 1 and done is if I had meat in them.
And I thought it was avoid thing to not throw plastic in the garbage.
Jimmah and Rosalyn were the same generation as my parents; my father didn't live long enough to show that sort of behavior, but my mother lived as though she had one foot in the poorhouse, even after she came into some money late in life.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle baby!
Don't forget the aluminum foil, folded in pieces in a kitchen drawer. Crinkled beyond belief, one for this cup, one for this bowl, one for this other purpose. They only got thrown out when they were ready to disappear.
A concern for the environment begins with the control of consumption. Being a cheapskate in these matters comes naturally to anybody that has known hardship, and ziplock bags are made for re-use. Unless it's damaged or worn out, why wouldn't you? Because you're too lazy to wash it out?
You can set up links to Carter hagiography all you like, Professor, but the wife and I remember him as a petty and malignant man who was too small for the job he sought and held and failed at, that of President of the United States. I know what we went through starting out our married life, and I know what neighbors on fixed pensions went through, what neighbors whose careers were based on selling via loans — e.g., real estate and autos — went through, and what so many others went through thanks to him and his feckless policies.
70's short shorts and crocs. Oog.
A big no-no, especially here at Althouse.
Trying to repair the Carter legacy on the coattails of “Hillbilly Elegy”
We kept a landline with a corded phone for a long time after everybody had a cell phone, because: a) it stayed in the same place, and b) my wife's mother and several other members of her generation refused to call any other number.
We eventually got rid of it--as I recall at a certain point around 2016 the only people who called us were Donald Trump and people selling replacement windows.
Charming description. However, did anyone who entered the house automatically double in size?
I prefers the Hefty Slider bags. Much easier to use.
I turn them inside out to wash them in soap and hot water, no matter what was in them. I'd rather donate them to some underprivileged drug dealer to use than just throw them away.
As my grandfather used to say, poor people have poor ways.
We save plastic bags and aluminum foil. Is it better to just landfill it after using it once? I think not. But I use a clothesline too instead of a dryer.
In 2008, Chris Rock said to vote for the guy with one house. That criterion didn't last long with Obama.
On a personal level Carter was decent, honorable man. Compare him to Jerry Ford, who left the White House and moved to Palm Springs, and did nothing but sit on the board of some big Companies and play golf.
Carter could've been much richer if he'd "played the Game". Not being an Israeli shill cost him millions. But he wanted to be an honest broker of peace.
Of course, Carter's poverty was partly due to the Rich liberal/left, and foreigners, not yet understanding how to bribe US Presidents with zillion dollar donations to their "Foundations" and huge speaking fees. Bill and Hillary now have a net worth of $240 million. Pretty good for people who technically only earned an income as Government officials.
One of our neighbors who died 20 years ago, was from the WW II Generation and kept every appliance that Konked out, in a plastic bag in basement. Y'know because one day you might want to save some money by getting it fixed instead of buying a new one. LOL.
And it took my mother years, to stop saving the fat/grease - a hold over from rationing.
Yeah, one comments reminded me. The saving of alumminum foil. LOL my mother must have had 10 pounds of it when she passed away!
Very moving. May we all be so lucky as to be remembered with such love and respect.
Carter's grandson is a natural politician, but have no idea whether he is involved in politics. As for the former president, I never voted for Carter in either election and never thought much of him as president. But he tried hard (much harder than, say, Obama) to bring us together and I can easily see why others might view him differently than I do.
We kept my mother's landline until about a year after she died (ever settled an estate?) then my sister found out that she could have the number transferred to her cell phone. That's the only cell # I know by heart.
And I do the same thing. Call it being a thrifty Yankee. My mother does the same. The idea of it going into the trash when it may have only held a few cookies seems wasteful.
He was still a very lousy POTUS, everything else notwithstanding.
The rendition of "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" was really insipid. Some idiot must have thought that non-stirring was appropriate for a funeral. The poor soldiers holding the US and Presidential flags were nearly knocked over by the wind outside the cathedral. They were very slow getting the casket out of the hearse, so they must have been exhausted--I hope it wasn't Biden's fault.
I had two chances to vote for Carter for President, and I declined both. In 1976 whoever the Democrat nominee was had an apparent lock on the election over the selected-not-elected Ford, but I thought Jerry had done a good job under difficult circumstances. My father, who was dying at the time, teased me that Carter was certain to win, and of course he was right about that as about so many things.
In 1980 there really was no doubt. The Carter administration was a failure (not an "abject" failure, like, say Hoover or Biden, but a failure) and Reagan offered a new approach, which I voted for, and which he delivered.
But contra to what a lot of old Republicans like to say, Carter was NOT the worst President since Buchanan. Yes, he screwed up a lot of things, and many of his policies were (to put it gently) counter-productive, but he did get the movement toward federal deregulation started even before Reagan lit the fuse.
Biden has a lock on "worst-President-ever", and I hope it stays that way.
not long! he DID spend 4 years (during WWII) in the Naval Academy
(well, from 1941 until 1946 in ROTC or the Academy)
Then, from '46 until '53 active duty..
Except for his six-month nuclear power plant operation course at Union College in Schenectady.
and
his 3-month temporary duty BEFORE that at the Naval Reactors Branch of the AEC in Washington, D.C.
SO..
from 1948, to 1951, he served on diesel subs
could be used to line casket and make proud
The grandson spoke about his grandfather, and like all such memories, especially those from when he was a little kid, you focus on the small things.
Amongst all of the political talk this is the most appropriate.
We reuse them, depending on what was in them. It just seems profligate to throw away a perfectly good bag. Plastic doesn't grow on trees. (Well it was trees once, but that was a long time ago.)
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