Notes from my Knapsack 1-9-25

Maria —
So, I like this as it is, but the body text runs 677 words. If you remove all three sections set off with ***triple asterisks*** you get to 585, and I can weep into my coffee if necessary. But feel free to just remove the ***'s and run it as is if you have room!
Pax, Jeff

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Notes from my Knapsack 1-9-25
Jeff Gill

Jimmy & Rosalynn were a matched pair
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As the nation says farewell to Jimmy Carter, and we in faith celebrate his reunion with his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, this story sticks with me.

I never had the pleasure or privilege of speaking to our former president, but his spouse… about twenty years ago, Rosalynn Carter came to Denison University, and I had the chance to help with setting up a reception for her and the program she was coming to promote, so I was early to the campus building where it was happening, ***moving tables and setting up chairs and such in what was then Cleveland Hall (now the Bryant Art Center).***

She and her two Secret Service men also showed up early, and the faculty in charge of the event talked to her, and I faded back into the rear of the room, which opened onto a balcony. The people coming to the reception started flowing up the interior stairs, and suddenly the profs pivoted to something else, and Mrs. Carter retreated back towards where I was waiting. To be perfectly honest, I had made a point of putting a Habitat lapel pin on the jacket I was wearing. It worked.

She turned, saw my pin, walked right over and introduced herself (ha!); I explained my involvement with Habitat and more with a transitional housing program. Her immediate question was about how we dealt with mental health issues. She knew her stuff, and I told her what our problems were in navigating that interface, with Medicaid billing a big complication.

The crowd grew, but between the refreshments and the punch, they all talked to each other while lining up for nosh, and Mrs. Carter and I stepped back onto the balcony. One Secret Service agent had stayed near the interior stairs and entrance; the one with her handed us both cups of punch he'd grabbed, smiled at us and said "I'll stand here in the doorway so you two can talk."

We chatted about Habitat and how builds went and what "Jimmy" liked to do (framing), whom she referred to often, but not cloyingly so. Clearly a partnership, and a loving relationship, which everyone knows, but it was sweet to hear by inference. She said they both worried that when they showed up they were more distraction than help, but they tried to make up for it with working the best they could "and not just for the cameras!" ***She was smiling when she said that, but you could hear a tinge of irritation -- and you'd never get her to say who she might have been talking about.***

Rosalynn Carter had opinions about how Medicaid and mental health was working, and certainly in 2005 was talking in terms of a federal single payer health care program as the only logical, practical solution she could see; she was curious about how we handled incoming persons who didn't have Medicaid and were reluctant to sign up for it. ***I'll admit the challenge as the crowd grew and the hubbub increased around us was that she was very soft voiced, and approximately half my height (or so it seemed), so I increasingly hunched over to bring my ears a little closer.***

To my everlasting frustration, we had just started talking about how she wished churches had taken more of an interest in mental health treatment & recovery, when the event leader came up to our doorway, and said to the Secret Service agent "We need Mrs. Carter to help us get started." She asked if I was coming to the big evening event, and I said yes, and she said "Maybe we'll get to talk more then; you take care."

I did see her in Swasey Chapel that night. She waved at me across the crowd at one point as people were settling in; afterwards, there was an event with students planned, and I went home because I had an early morning meeting the next day, so we did not talk again. But I remember that wave, and her smile. Godspeed, ma'am. Tell Jimmy I said hi.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; I suspect there are other Jimmy Carter stories out there! Feel free to share them with him at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.