On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Captain C
In November of 2019 I went with my mother to visit her sister in Atlanta for a few days; my first time there since I was a kid. In addition to the family time, we got to see some cool things, including the Carter Center, the Aquarium, and the National Center for Human and Civil Rights.
This first set is from the Carter Presidential Center
Here we see the entrance to the Carter Presidential Center, dedicated to the man who will likely go down as having the greatest post-Presidency of all.
A display on Carter’s childhood years and influences.
The Carters’ wedding outfits.
Some bits from Carter’s governorship of Georgia, when he was seen by the press as one of a new breed of Democrats.
The Carter Campaign was one of the first to embrace Rock music; here we see a flyer for an benefit concert featuring the Allman Brothers.
Here we see a replica of the Carter Oval Office
A copy of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1978.
Carter’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Baud
History’s Greatest Museum.
Raven
I saw the Allman’s twice before Duane died.
evap
Nice pictures! I live near the Carter Center and run on a trail that goes right past it. One morning about 15 years ago I was running on the trail and passed Jimmy and Roslyn running the other direction, with two secret service dudes running in front of them. I gave them a cheery hello, although only Roslyn said hello back.
wetzel
The Allman Brothers playing Jimmy Carter is best Georgia. I was just a little boy when my mom, dad and sister along with my grandparents on my mother’s side traveled from Bainbridge to Plains in 1976 for Inauguration Day.
Jimmy Carter taught me that poetry isn’t a kind of identity but just another kind of work you do. You do it to have artistic experience. You can’t fail at it. That’s Jimmy Carter. I feel bad his own church’s leadership treats him poorly. They do not know what to make of him.
My summer job in college was working on the Presidential Parkway. Before going a friend’s dad had gotten my friends and I a couple of weeks working in a big Atlanta construction company’s sign shop. Me and two friends getting yelled at for pitching big bolts into a bin and denting the threads. I asked the dad later for a summer job and he put me with a black crew from Rutledge, GA, which is outside of Winder between Atlanta and Athens. I worked with them for two summers. I remember one time Chicken was flooring the loader, the kind with wheels, and I was riding on the side. Both of us high on the fun bounding down the whole length of the parkway from Little Five Points. Chicken probably just wanted to get the loader to the job because operating that equipment is fun as hell.
Then we’re seeing the Impala in a crossing pattern up ahead to intercept us. Chicken sits back and I still remember him turning to me with a look that was either rueful or mirthful, I can’t remember, but it was the old man himself, Shepherd, the owner of one of the two or three biggest construction companies on Georgia. He walks up and takes off his hat. It’s so long ago it’s hard to picture him. I remember a twist of wispy grey hair on a bald head.
“Ain’t no call for you boys to be driving that loader so goddamn fast!!!!!!”
“Yes sir!” “Yes sir!”
And that was that!!!
I think of my friends from Rutledge on the pipe crew. I was with them for two summers. We built the Presidential Parkway and then the next summer it was State Hwy 139 in Clayton County. The 2nd summer was pure luck. I’d flown back from college and they were working in Riverdale. I pulled over and said ‘Hey Herbert! Give me a job!’ and we walked right in and did it because the Foreman makes the crew in construction. $5.25/hr in the 1980’s was good pay!!
I have a lot of memories from the Presidential Parkway that came flooding back this morning and brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for putting together this post.
WaterGirl
Seeing these pictures and thinking of President Carter this morning makes me smile.
That is not something I predicted. If you had given me a list of 10 things about Carter, and asked me decide which 5 were facts and which 5 were made up, this would have been the first to go into the made-up column.
oatler
@Raven:
B. O. was one of the greats. Same intersection where Duane died.
Jack the Cold Warrior
@WaterGiWaterGiR
@WaterGirl: here’s even more rock influences on Carter, a part of his 1974 Law Day speech memorialized by Hunter S Thompson:
My own interest in the criminal justice system is very deep and heartfelt. Not having studied law, I’ve had to learn the hard way. I read a lot and listen a lot. One of the sources for my understanding about the proper application of criminal justice and the system of equity is by reading Reinhold Niebuhr from a book that Bill Gunter gave me quite a number of years ago. The other source of my understanding about what’s right and wrong in this society is from a personal, very close friend of mine, a great poet named Bob Dylan. After listening to his records about “The Ballad of Hattie Carol” and “Like a Rolling Stone” and “The Times, They Are a-Changing”, I’ve learned to appreciate the dynamism of change in a modern society.
I grew up as a landowner’s son. But I don’t think I ever realized that the proper interrelationship between the landowner and those who worked on a farm until I heard Dylan’s record, “I Ain’t Gonna Work on Maggie’s Farm No More.” So I come here speaking to you today about your subject with a base for — for my own information founded on Reinhold Niebuhr and Bob Dylan.
@WaterGirl: