The Peanut Man

Jimmy Carter, farmer, builder, peacemaker, human being, 1924–20024

The logo says Ford, but it looked like a Jimmy to me. Photo by Noel Holston (Author)

In 2017, my wife and I made a weekend pilgrimage to Plains, Georgia, hoping to sit in on a Jimmy Carter Sunday school lesson. Several friends in our hometown, Athens, had made the trip, and they had said, “Oh, you have to go. He’s so personable and inspirational.”

We aren’t particularly religious, and we’re definitely not Baptist like Mr. Carter. Marty’s a “recovering” Catholic Buddhist and I’m a Seventh Day Adventurer, but we both admired the former President because he walked his Christian talk.

We spent Saturday night at a hotel in nearby Americus and drove over to Plains the next morning to the Carters’ home church, Maranatha Baptist.

Alas, Mr. Carter did not teach that Sunday. He wasn’t feeling well, so a niece of his filled in.

We were disappointed but, as it turned out, just driving around in Plains was a lesson — in humility.

Maranatha, the Carters’ choice of churches, is not the biggest Baptist in Plains. It’s as modest as a thousand other Protestant sanctuaries in the rural and small town South.

The Carter residence, which we were able to see from a distance, is a ranch-style brick house that reminded me of my Uncle Mallard’s place in Ellisville, Mississippi — and a thousand other…