The remains of my Father-in-law were scattered to the four winds from atop Bowman’s Hill Tower on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. Thomas Mason’s children loved this family getaway place near the spot where George Washington crossed over to Trenton, New Jersey on Christmas night in 1776.

George Washington became our first President and Thomas Mason became the foreman of a concrete block plant. They walked the same ground near the Delaware River separated by 200 years and starkly contrasting social and political worlds. But they were in their own place and time, men who helped shape the people and moments that they encountered with humility and decency.  

When President Jimmy Carter passed recently, I thought of this intersection of presidential power with humility and service. It is fitting that James Earl Carter, Jr. chose to run for public office as Jimmy Carter. He had always been called Jimmy and thought it natural.

When the people who have helped shape our world for good pass, be they famous or not, the sun still rises and sets. But we change into our best clothes and we honor their legacy like John-John Kennedy standing at attention saluting his father passing in a casket pulled by a horse-drawn caisson.

Alice Evans writes about honoring the life of another President. The train bearing the body of President Eisenhower was to pass near the family home in Missouri. The train departed Washington, D.C. for his burial in Abilene, Kansas. It passed through seven states and covered 1,389 miles in 35 hours.

On March 31, 1969, her father, a Korean War veteran, a farmer, and a student of American history, donned his Sunday suit and took his family to view the funeral train of Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

“Around me, I could sense palpable anticipation. Within a minute, a long train came into view. My father stood at full attention in a military salute, something I had never seen. Tears streamed down his face. I had not seen that before. Inside the brightly lit final car we saw, or thought we saw, Mrs. Eisenhower dressed in black sitting at a table. The moment passed by as though in a blur and was over. Dad was no longer saluting, but he was still crying.” An Ordinary Citizen Honors A Man of Extraordinary Decency Alice Evans  January 7, 2025 Front Porch Republic 

Like John John saluting his father and a Korean war veteran saluting President Eisenhower, Mark Moore has saluted President Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, with poignant words. Moore is using peanuts to feed millions of malnourished children around the world. He is one of the founders of an organization called Mana. They honor the legacy of a man born into slavery, George Washington Carver, who overcame severe malnutrition and hardship to become one of the most visionary agricultural scientists in history. Known as “the plant doctor,” his groundbreaking work with peanuts helped revive the soil of the American South and empowered Black farmers during Reconstruction. You can read about Mark Moore and Mana here.  https://mananutrition.org/who-we-are/

“When a reporter shouted to Ms Lillian Carter on Inauguration Day in 1977 “Ms Lillian, are you proud of your son?” She retorted, “ Which one?”  Her boy Jimmy had a decent resume that has since grown more impressive. Top of his class at the Naval Academy, Nuclear Engineer, entered a melting Canadian Nuclear reactor in his 20’s to stop it from catastrophe, state senator, governor of Georgia, president of the United States. Later he would imagine and organize the Camp David Accords, teach thousands of Bible classes, win a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Eradicate Guinea Worm, launch the Carter Center and put Habitat for Humanity on the map. Not too bad for a lowly peanut farmer. I’m always shocked to have so many of my friends who don’t 100% agree with everything he ever stood for dismiss and belittle him when 1000 of his accomplishments, awards and accolades that will not make his obituary would be the top achievement of many of our lives.” Mark Moore