Jimmy Carter – Roadkill Crossing

Farewell and Godspeed, Jimmy Carter

My wife and I with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter at Maranatha Baptist Church, Plains, Georgia.

Today, the nation says farewell to its 39th president. The state funeral will be held in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.. In contrast, a private service will be held tomorrow at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, where Jimmy and Rosalynn attended and Jimmy taught Sunday school.

That’s where the above photo was taken on March 1, 2015. While vacationing in northeast Florida, Neva and I decided to visit Plains and attend the Sunday school class taught by the former president. At age 90, he was reducing how often he led the class.

Jimmy was scheduled to teach the day after we needed to leave Florida, so we drove the four-and-a-half-hour drive from Fernandina Beach to Plains. When we arrived, we drove around Plains, which didn’t take long given the town’s small size. We also visited the Jimmy Carter National Park, where the visitor’s center is the old Plains High School.

We enjoyed our brief tour there and saw the Nobel Peace Prize that Jimmy was awarded in 2002. The old schoolhouse is much like it was when Jimmy attended there.

We also wanted to stay overnight in Plains, but the bed and breakfast had no vacancies. The perk to staying there gave patrons a front-row seat at the church, where the owner, Miss Jan, also attended. Plus, she was Amy Carter’s third-grade teacher.

Maranatha Baptist Church, Plains, Georgia.

We met Miss Jan the next day after standing in line for a while. She took charge and barked out the procedures for entering the church, starting with passing through the Secret Service agents’ inspection. Much like filing through TSA at an airport, we emptied our pockets, and agents ran a wand up, down, and around everyone. So, the long line was slow going.

We had arrived early, but many others had arrived earlier. Perhaps they had the same idea. Like us, they had heard the praises of Jimmy’s teaching, and given that he was 90, they wanted an opportunity to listen to this humble former president’s wisdom.

Once in the church, we sat near the back since so many were ahead of us. The modest brick church surrounded by pecan trees wasn’t that large, so we could still see and hear well. Suddenly, Miss Jan appeared again and, like a drill sergeant, metered out the rules of the morning. Once Jimmy began teaching, no photos were permitted.

Since the church was packed, latecomers had to sit in the fellowship hall and watch a live stream of Jimmy Carter’s lesson. That’s how popular his teaching was.

If you wanted a picture with Jimmy and Rosalynn, you had to also stay for the church service. His class was the hour before the worship service. Then, Miss Jan asked us to bow our heads, and she said a lovely prayer. When the “Amen” was announced, we looked up, and Jimmy stood there smiling and waving to the congregation.

Jimmy Carter at Maranatha Baptist Church on March 1, 2015.

A collective “awe” echoed through the sanctuary, and Jimmy began his lesson. I don’t remember the scripture he used, but I can never forget the meaning of his message. Be humble and serve others.

That perfectly summed up Jimmy and Rosalynn’s life after leaving the White House. They established the Carter Center in Atlanta, whose purpose mirrored that of the Carters: peacebuilding, working for democracy in global countries, and improving human rights. Other goals include improving health and economies in third-world countries, ensuring fair elections, and educating people about the effects of climate change.

Jimmy and Rosalynn spent years supporting and assisting on sight Habitat for Humanity projects. They were great humanitarians. From my perspective, Jimmy was the most effective former president the United States ever had.

We stayed for the church service, and afterward, nearly everyone wanted a photo with Jimmy and Rosalynn. Miss Jan had the method down pat, and we got our photo. It was one of the proudest moments of my life to stand next to such loving human beings, an ex-president and a first lady.

Farewell, Godspeed, and thank you, Jimmy!

Noteworthy news that didn’t make the headlines in 2019

Well, we made it. You and I have traveled yet one more year around the sun. True to form, 2019 was full of wonder, mistakes, successes, and a smorgasbord of conundrums and craziness.

As usual, I kept track of a few of the lesser but still extraordinary events and findings during the year.

January 20 – A meteorite was recorded striking the surface of the moon during the Super Full Blood Wolf Moon total lunar eclipse.
January 22 – According to a report from nonprofit Oxfam, the world’s 26 wealthiest people are worth the same amount of money as the world’s poorest 3.8 billion.
January 30 – The temperature dropped to -48 degrees with a wind chill of -65 in Norris Camp, Minnesota, making it the coldest place in the lower 48 states.

February 1 – The BBC reported that January was the hottest month on record in Australia and that five days were among the top 10 on record for the warmest.
February 7 – NASA reported that the last five years have been the hottest since records began being kept in 1880, with 2018 the fourth warmest year.
February 13 – NASA announced that it had declared the Mars rover dead after being unable to communicate with it following a massive dust storm on the red planet.
March 25 – A British Airways flight bound for Dusseldorf, Germany, instead accidentally landed in Edinburgh, Scotland, because the company filed the wrong flight papers.

March 26 – UPS began an experimental delivery system using drones in North Carolina.
March 27 – Airbnb, the online home-sharing site, surpassed Hilton Hotels in annual sales.
April 11 – A standup comedian in England died halfway through his comedy routine, only the audience thought it was part of his act.
April 19 – A 10-year-old Fredrick, Maryland girl born without hands won a national handwriting contest.
April 22 – The BBC reported that 23 million people use 123456 as their password for private online accounts, with 123456789 as the second most popular password.
May 22 – The last known ship to bring slaves to the U.S., the schooner Clotilda, was discovered in a remote branch of Alabama’s Mobile River.
May 23 – Longtime Marietta, Georgia, mail carrier Floyd Martin retired, and on his last route, residents decorated their mailboxes and held a block party after he finished his deliveries.
May 31 – After 20 rounds and running out of hard words, the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., crowned an unprecedented eight co-champions.
June 5 – Tom Rice, 97, of Coronado, California, reenacted his pre-D-Day 1944 jump into Carentan, France, as part of the 75th anniversary of the Allied invasion at Normandy.

June 11 – Kraft announced that it was selling salad frosting, which was French dressing disguised in a colorful bottle to get kids to like it.
June 19 – A survey by YouGov reported that 39 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 hadn’t used deodorant in the last 30 days.
July 3 – The American Automobile Association estimated that a record 49 million people would be traveling the U.S. highways on the Fourth of July holiday.
July 12 – A report on British roadkill showed that badgers were the mammals most likely to meet their end on the highway, although pheasants led the animal roadway mortality rate.
July 22 – Officials near Sandpoint, Idaho removed turtle crossing signs because thieves kept stealing them as soon as the unique warning signs were replaced.
August 14 – A 12-year-old boy attending a family reunion found a rare Ice Age wooly mammoth tooth by a creek near the Inn at Honey Run near Millersburg, Ohio.
August 15 – A new study released by the U.S. Geological Survey showed that 90 percent of rainwater samples in Colorado included microplastic shards, beads, and fibers.
September 6 – A new international study showed that 90 percent of the time eyewitnesses would assist someone assaulted in public.
September 7 – Miami Marlins pitcher Brian Moran struck out his young brother, Colin, pinch-hitting for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
September 21 – When a car fell on his neighbor pinning him, Zac Clark, a 16-year-old high school football player from Butler, Ohio, rushed over and lifted the 3,000-pound auto, saving the neighbor’s life.

October 7 – After falling at his home in Plains, Georgia the previous day, former President Jimmy Carter, 95, with a bandage above his left eye and a visible welt below, still helped build a Habitat for Humanity home in Nashville, Tennessee.
October 18 – NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir performed the first all-female spacewalk when they ventured outside the International Space Station for five and a half hours to replace a faulty battery charger.
October 30 – Firefighters in Simi Valley, California successfully saved the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library from a wildfire with assistance from a herd of goats brought in earlier in the year to eat away the brush surrounding the library.
November 3 – When midnight shift workers didn’t show up at a Birmingham Waffle House restaurant, several customers jumped behind the counter to help the lone employee serve 30 other customers.
November 8 – The last survivor of the Hindenburg Disaster, Werner Gustav Doehner, died in Laconia, New Hampshire, at age 90.
November 18 – Police in Goddard, Kansas, discovered a camel, cow, and donkey wandering along a rural road.
December 9 – A New York City man removed and ate a banana from a Miami, Florida art exhibit that had sold for $120,000.
December 10 – A 43-year-old Monroe County, Louisiana man, was arrested for fixing the bingo game he was calling so his relatives could win.
December 20 – Emily Williams, a wildlife ecologist in Alaska, was late for work because a moose was licking the salt off of her car.

Here’s hoping 2020 will give us both a better year and better eyesight in all that is happening around us.

Happy New Year!

In words and deeds, a President humbly true to his faith

Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn Carter — With Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015

By Bruce Stambaugh

Humility, service, love, family and faith are vital pillars of any stable community. My wife and I enthusiastically witnessed these highest of human qualities at a little Baptist church in Plains, Georgia.

We knew we wouldn’t be the only ones who would want to hear Jimmy Carter teach Sunday school. When the former president is scheduled to teach, the tiny congregation of 30 swells to 10 times that amount, sometimes more.

The good folks at Maranatha Baptist Church know what to do. They are ready for the ensuing onslaught. So are the authorities.

When we arrived at 8:30 a.m. at the modest church that damp, gray Sunday morning, a police dog checked every vehicle entering the property for bombs. Though we were plenty early, a line of people already stretched from the front door, down the cement sidewalk to the parking lot.

By now, former President Carter has developed quite the reputation as a teacher, humanitarian, and world-renowned peacemaker. At age 90, he and his equally gracious wife, Rosalynn, are still putting their faith into action.

Noble Peace Prize, Jimmy Carter — Jimmy Carter’s Nobel Peace Prize medal. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015

My wife and I joined the queue to enter the red brick building. A stern looking woman popped onto the church’s front porch to announce the procedures for entering. She spoke loudly and resolutely so everyone could plainly hear the specific instructions to make everything go as smoothly as possible.

Secret Service agents greeted us inside the door. We emptied our pockets onto a table and removed our coats. Another officer checked everyone with a wand for any suspicious objects.

We sat in a pew about two-thirds of the way back from the pulpit. Promptly at 9 a.m., the same drill sergeant like lady walked to the front of the church and introduced herself as “Miss Jan.”

Miss Jan spent the next 45 minutes kindly but firmly going over all the rules of conduct. Included were not standing or clapping for the president and no photography during the class or worship. We could take pictures during Jimmy’s brief introduction.

Miss Jan continued, “If you want your picture taken with the President and First Lady you must stay for both the Sunday school and the worship.”

After a brief break, Miss Jan, who had taught the Carter’s daughter, Amy, in elementary school, had us all bow our heads for a prayer. When she said, “Amen,” Jimmy Carter surprised the congregation when he rose and began addressing the crowd. He and his Secret Service guards had quietly sneaked in during the prayer. We hung on his every word.

Miss Jan kept watch over the assembled. She occasionally hugged or bent down to shake the hand of a Secret Service agent, as if she were welcoming them back to a family gathering. The affection they shared was for more than themselves. Their common assignment of protecting the president they loved and admired expressed their uniform devotion.

Jimmy Carter, Sunday school — Jimmy Carter was making a point during the introduction section of the class. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015

The topic was loving God and your neighbor. Jimmy humbly shared how organizations he supports, like the Lions Club, Habitat for Humanity, and The Carter Center in Atlanta, help him put this charitable concept into global deeds for peace and human rights.

Jimmy used the word “humble” several times, pronouncing it the old-fashioned way, without the beginning “H” sound. It modeled his southern, gentlemanly hospitable manner.

After the service, Miss Jan resumed command, dismissing us by rows to have our pictures taken with Jimmy and Rosalynn. When she came to our row, I told her she must have been an excellent teacher. Miss Jan winked, smiled, and quietly thanked me.

Miss Jan had instructed us not to either shake hands with the Carters or to talk to them so that everyone could get through the process as quickly and efficiently as possible. When the lady taking the photo with my camera clicked the shutter, Rosalynn whispered to Neva that the flash hadn’t gone off.

That was so thoughtful of her. The picture was fine, just like Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, and Miss Jan, too.

The communion cup of love, faith, family, humility, and service generously overflowed in Plains, Georgia. We were grateful to have been partaken.