The last sitting president to visit Stanislaus County was Jimmy Carter who passed away last week at the age of 100.
When you’ve had a personal interaction with a celebrity, news of their death is felt more deeply than if you had never met them. I saw Jimmy Carter on four occasions and shook his hand on the closest contact.
I was 15 years old and attended Carter’s inauguration on a very cold Jan. 20, 1977 on the east side of the U.S. Capitol. Only because of the action of our Congressman, John J. McFall of Manteca, was I was in decent range from the podium. My parents were miles back and could only hear what was taking place. I could see Carter’s famous smile flash. I remember her teal coat of Mrs. Carter and Joan Mondale’s red dress. I could see Hubert Humphrey, who was ill with cancer and would die almost a full year later, in his tall ushanka hat looking like some Russian oligarch. I remember spying Vice President Walter Mondale, outgoing President Gerald Ford, little Amy Carter standing on a chair, white haired Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, Senator Robert Byrd and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance all standing near the front.
I remember seeing the white-haired robed Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger administer the oath. It was surreal.
After the event, Congressman McFall invited me and my parents to a luncheon in the House office building where the young son of John Garamendi (who would later become lieutenant governor) goofing off under the table. He is now a Calaveras County supervisor and his dad a congressman.
I later watched the presidential motorcade roll down J Street when Carter visited Sacramento in November 1978. I snapped a good picture of him smiling and grinning through the window as the limo swept by us very quickly.
I’d see Carter again in another 18 months or so.
It was a memorable occasion when Carter visited the Central Valley during the Fourth of July in an election year. The president and First Lady Rosalynn Carter came to Merced at the request of Congressman Tony Coelho, who I interned for in his Modesto district office in 1979.
The presidential visit was at two locations that day in 1980. The first was a Town Hall meeting inside the Merced Junior College auditorium. Because of its size limitations, a person had to obtain a ticket by lottery. I was lucky to have snagged one as did my girlfriend Susan Hackamack of Modesto. Susan and I were among the early-risers who were in line at 4:30 a.m. to snag the best seats for Carter’s Town Hall.
My grandmother got a ticket but my grandfather did not and had to wait along the ropes. He would not be disappointed. He would later tell us that he was able to shake Carter’s hand before me and would remark for years that he never felt a hand as soft as his.
The Carters were delivered to Merced courtesy of Air Force One which landed at Castle Air Force Base and then by helicopter to the Merced Junior College.
The wait seemed like forever and the excitement inside the gym grew when we heard the thunderous sound of the presidential choppers – there were two of them – landed outside.
The choppers were in place to whisk the Carters to Modesto after the Merced event.
Susan, I and my grandmother snagged good seats. We were sitting two rows behind where Mrs. Carter would be sitting with former California Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown. I wanted to be on the end so that I could possibly shake President Jimmy Carter’s hand if he strolled by. In fact, I made a large sign that read, “Mr. President, Please Shake Our Hands.”
With “Hail to the Chief” playing, an energetic President Carter bounded into the auditorium which just exploded with cheering and thunderous applause. He stood on the platform and waved to waving hands and flags. I watched the president’s eyes scan the crowd and stop on my sign that I was holding high above my head. I could read his lips, “I will.” I just had communicated with the president of the United States and he answered!
The speech went on and there was a Q&A with citizens but I was ready for it to be over with for I had a hand to shake.
About an hour later the event was over. President Carter made his way onto the floor and started working the crowd as a surge of bodies pushed around him. After seconds of maneuvering, I made my way to President Carter, who was pumping both hands into the crowd for those eager to touch a president. He was about my height and I remember grasping the top of his left hand, my fingers pressing into that soft palm.
The adrenaline was pumping and I could hear my grandmother blurt out, “God bless you, Mr. President.” He answered in his soft Georgia accent, “God bless us all.”
I don’t remember passing through any metal detectors – we likely may have been wanded – but as the president stood before me I hoped nobody would try to shoot him as he was about my height. I was a student of history and knew that William McKinley, James Garfield, Theodore Roosevelt, George Wallace and Robert Kennedy all had been shot in crowds.
Mrs. Carter was sweeping along right behind her husband. I held my Town Hall ticket and a pen in my left hand and reached out with my right hand to shake hers. I asked if she would sign my ticket. As our hands were locked in a shake the entire time, she looked over her shoulder at the Secret Service and said, “Honey, they won’t let me but I’ll tell you what. If you send that to the White House I will sign it for you.”
She seemed just as warm and caring as she came across on TV. She called me “honey” an endearing term you’d expect any syrupy southern woman would use.
My handshake with Rosalynn Carter seemed longer than 10 seconds and this 18-year-old felt like the most important person in the room.
I did mail that Town Hall admission ticket to the White House, explaining that Mrs. Carter herself told me to send it for her autograph so the request had better be honored. Weeks of waiting turned into months and let’s just say I never saw my prized ticket again.
I continued to watch President Carter move around the gym as he seemed to magnetize a cluster of folks reaching out to touch. I stood upon one of the chairs which now were scattered everywhere in helter-skelter fashion. I reached out to tap Gov. Brown – he was virtually forgotten in the presence of the president – on the shoulder and he spun around and we shook hands. He seemed surprised that a young man in 1980 would recognize him and desired a handshake and I believe he actually thanked me. Brown, by the way, was the governor who accompanied John F. Kennedy to Yosemite in August 1962 from Merced.
I stepped up on another chair to track Carter’s movement, my back turned to the network cameras in the back of the room. All of a sudden I felt my shirt being tugged downward and I nearly lost my balance. I spun around and saw the rude culprit who yanked me off the chai was Leslie Stahl of CBS News. Apparently I was in the way of their camera. I would love to see that video footage today.
The president boarded the awaiting helicopter to whisk him off to Modesto, loosely following Santa Fe Avenue and over Empire on their way to the landing zone at Christine Sipherd Elementary School. From there the presidential limo motored west down Orangeburg Avenue and south on Lillian Way to the Wycliffe Drive home of attorney Frank Damrell. Attending the Democratic fundraiser luncheon was a young county supervisor named Gary Condit. You may have heard of him.
To prepare for the visit the Secret Service had frogmen in the waters of Dry Creek which backed up to the Damrell property. I remember that the Bee reported that the Damrells had a flag pole installed in front of their house.
There was no getting close to that event so I drove over to Christine Sipherd Elementary School on Orangeburg Avenue before Carter’s motorcade returned.
On the playground was Marine One and its twin. Jimmy and Rosalynn greeted local officials on the walk to the helicopter. Carter waved high in both directions, to the south and then to the north where I was.
I felt intensely patriotic to see Marine One – there were actually two duplicate helicopters on hand – lift off, taking the Carters overhead in a circle over area, Jimmy plainly visible waving out the window. Then it was back to Castle Air Force Base and a flight to Miami, Florida and back home in Plains, Georgia that night.
I was so relieved that Modesto had not become a Dallas that day.
The last time I saw President Carter was on Nov. 4, 1991 when he appeared with four other presidents at the grand opening of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. In a single and rare couple of seconds, standing before us were President Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. All are now deceased.
I’ll never be a witness to such a historic gathering in my lifetime – one punctuated by remarks made by actor Charlton Heston and the singing of “I’m Proud to Be an American” by Lee Greenwood himself.
I regret never having gotten back to Plains, Georgia to attend church with the Carters as I heard they would greet visitors all the time.
My heart went out to 99-year-old Jimmy Carter when I saw him on TV at his wife’s funeral last November, looking as though he wouldn’t last another month.
Someday I hope to visit Plains and their graves with fond memories and how they were linked to the shared experience with my grandparents who are also departed.
