I’ll share my personal President Carter story, just as an example of the kind of person he was. For purposes of this story, my name is leftfield. It’s not really, but you need a name for me at the end of this story.
About 10 years ago, I was waiting at the gate for a flight from Atlanta to Dallas. About 20 minutes before boarding started, two dark suited men emerged from a door marked “Authorized Personnel Only”, and with them came President Jimmy Carter. He stood near the gate waiting for the plane to board. A surprisingly few people recognized him, but no one approached him.
I walked over to one of the obviously Secret Service guys, and asked (very politely) if it was okay to approach the President. He said “sure”, so I walked over an introduced myself. He immediately started talking to me like I was an old friend. He asked why I was traveling to Dallas, and etc. I think we talked about where I lived, where I was from, he was very interested that my father served in WWII.
I think we “chatted” for a good 15 minutes. We shook hands and I told him how much I admired his public service, both in office and out. Something like that, i don’t remember exactly.
What I do remember is what happened AFTER we were on the plane. I had gotten on this flight as a last minute change from another flight, and I had a horrible seat. Absolute last row, right next to the door to the lavatory. President Carter was in 1st Class. By the time we got on the plane I think everyone had now figured out that this was indeed President Jimmy Carter. So, we are all seated, and then all traffic at the airport gets a “ground stop” due to approaching storms. We are going to be sitting on the plane now for a minimum of 30 minutes before leaving the gate.
I can see there a number of people around President Carter’s seat in first class, and eventually he stands up and begins walking back through the cabin. He is basically doing a meet’n’greet with everyone on the plane!! He is shaking hands, posing for pictures, basically back in politicking mode.
So, he finally gets to the back where I am, after shaking hands and saying hello to well over 150 people.
He sees me and says “Well, leftfield, you really should paid for a better seat” He had the biggest Jimmy Carter grin you can imagine. He was cracking up. I was beaming. A fucking ex-President had remembered my name. I’ll never forget that.
Best wishes to him and his family.