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Carter had consulted with Rosalynn on the clothing, books and toys that would go to Washington. He helped load the boxes and Amy's doll house aboard a rented truck that was driven north by one of Brother Billy's warehouse employees, with a Secret Service escort. Before the truck reached the Plains town line, an urgent radio message summoned it back: Amy's bicycle had somehow been forgotten and had to be picked up.
On his last day in Plains, Carter rose at 6:30 a.m. and gazed upon the dusting of snow and ice on the pine trees—the first in his octogenarian Uncle Alton's memory. While Rosalynn scrambled eggs and cheese, Jimmy fried the breakfast ham. Shortly before noon, he shut off the water and electricity, turned down the thermostat, and left the house in the care of a maid and the Secret Service. At the train depot, the Carters waved goodbye to the 18-car Peanut Special.
About two hours later, the Carters left the old life for good. With Amy cradling her cat, Misty Malarkey Ying Yang, and Jimmy carrying his own bags as usual, they boarded a chartered airliner at Albany, Ga. Carter told newsmen, "I think I'm ready now to be President. If I can stay close to the people of this country and not disappoint them, I think I have a chance to be a great President, but it still remains to be seen."
As he got off the plane in Washington, Carter carried his bags again, but the transformation had already begun. At the Kennedy Center that night, the audience—in evening dress—stood to applaud as the Carter family entered, Jimmy in a subdued black tuxedo and ruffled shirt, Rosalynn in a long red skirt and black blouse, and Amy in a red juniper. With pleased grins, they settled into the plush seats of the presidential box for the glittering, 2½-hr. 1977 New Spirit Inaugural Concert.
Shirley MacLaine, who kicked off the show, sang a new version of Cy Coleman's It's Not Where You Start (the last lines: "It's where you finish/ And you've finished on top"). Leonard Bernstein conducted the National Symphony Orchestra in his composition If Ever Man Were Loved by Wife, which he dedicated to Rosalynn. James Dickey recited a new poem, describing Carter as a mythic hero drawing strength from a walk in the Plains countryside on a summer's night. Sample lines: "Lord, let me shake/ With purpose. Wild hope can always spring/ From tended strength. Everything is in that."
John Wayne sidled up to the microphone and drawled, "I am considered a member of the opposition —the loyal opposition, accent the loyal. I'd have it no other way." Carter acknowledged the rapport by throwing Wayne a highball salute. For their second appearance together in 17 years, Mike Nichols and Elaine May did a routine about the first Jewish President. Phoned by his mother and scolded for not having called her, "President" Nichols pleads: "Mother, I was choosing a Cabinet. I didn't have a second." Retorts "Mother" May: "It's always something." Afterward, Miss Lillian insisted: "I'm not that kind of mother."
Other high spots: the dancing of the Alvin Ailey group, the trilling of Beverly Sills and Clamma Dale, the whole audience standing and clapping along with Aretha Franklin.