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Miss Lillian swept up to the polling place, took one look at the line of voters shivering in the brisk wind and declared, "I wouldn't stand in this line for nothin'!" An hour later she tried again, and upon receiving the voluminous ballot said airily, "I don't know what you'd do with all this except paper a barn." Behind the blue curtains she obviously relegated the long list of constitutional changes to the barn: she was closeted only long enough to flip the one lever she cared about.
Plains did not go completely for the man who put it on the map: the final tally was 481 Carter, 99 Ford. For those 99—and in Plains anybody who doesn't wear a Carter button is suspect—life may now be a bit chilly. "I just don't understand it," said a shopkeeper. "Jealousy, I suppose." Said the storekeeper next door: "I couldn't vote for somebody just because he lived here."
In Plains it's more than a matter of loyalty. A Carter victory guarantees a minor boom on Main Street. Contractor Abbett was already thinking about facilities for the Secret Service and Georgia troopers: "I hope I get my share of that work." Angie Stevens, manager of the Back Porch, a post-convention sandwich shop, had a forthright view of Election Day: "If he wins, we'll be here for five more years. If he loses—well, we've had a helluva good time!"
But the changing scene has brought new problems to Plains. At Walters' grocery store they posted a new sign: EFFECTIVE NOV. 1 ALL SALES WILL BE ON CASH BASIS ONLY. Sighed Mrs. Walters: "After 40 years in this store, things are changing. We have to do it."
The sunlit surface of this hamlet in its finest hour is clouded by a dark shadow—the bitter split within the Baptist Church over admitting blacks to membership. June Turner, wife of a deacon who opposes this change, talked about the agony to come, and tears slipped from her eyes. Without speaking his name, she blamed Jimmy Carter for pushing their church "into the spotlight, for putting it into politics." She wore no Carter button. Plains has produced a new President for the '70s, but is still fighting a battle of the '60s.
But that battle is not what preoccupied Plains on Election Day. In the floodlighted movie-set street, thousands milled about, dancing to the jarring sounds of the Zumi rock band, sipping beer, waiting for their President. By the time Carter came home, it was the start of a new day for him and for Plains. The town is no longer just a place you go through on the way to somewhere else. Plains is somewhere now.