(3 of 4)
That begins on the road from Americus to Plains, though with nothing like the quantity or hideousness that is standard issue now for the edges of almost any town. I note the chaste welcome center on my left with only three cars in the lot, then the silos and water tank, and finally the nice row of brick stores that have easily endured their freight of souvenirs and the acid marinade of countless photographs to remain as anyone's icon of small-town America. They are not exactly an architecturally distinguished row, but their variety and fantasy of ornament and color make pictures of Reagan's home street in Tampico, Ill., look dour.
A stop for coffee in the Main Street Cafe indicates that fantasy was not exhausted on the buildings. The menu still offers such sandwiches as "Amy's All American" (peanut butter with optional jelly), "Billy's Road to Recovery" (cold turkey), and a green salad called "Rosalynn's Remedy." Except for the silent caricatures on souvenirs and the now touching postcard photographs of a younger, happier Jimmy and an unharried Billy, that might well be all I'd have seen or heard of the Carters, unless I'd asked.
That's the first surprise, how the subject of Jimmy has vanished like dew. It is literally true that in four days of engaging random citizens and family relations in casual conversation, I never heard the President mentioned until I brought him up. The silence didn't seem a result of gloom, and certainly not of shame or humiliation. Billy's breakfast hangout, the Best Western Inn of Americus, did list crow on the menu of Nov. 5; but that's only consistent with the air of amused and stoic relief that greeted all my inquiries.
Any close observer has seen from the start that Jimmy Carter was from Plains but not of it. His qualities, especially his pride and hunger, propelled him away; and no doubt he .realized long ago that no overachiever is ever thanked at home. Not while he's achieving. Of the registered voters in his home district, 505 voted for Carter, 174 voted for Reagan, Clark or Anderson, and 282 didn't bother to vote at all.
But ask about him and the answer will almost always take the circuitous form of speculation about his future relation to Plains. Will he or won't he live here? Will the Carter Library be here or in Atlanta? Rosalynn, they tell me, has said in a recent interview that they'll keep a place in Atlanta but will mostly be here where Jimmy will be writing; and that Amy will go to public school in the county. It's frequently mentioned that the abandoned Plains high school might make a good site for the presidential library (one look at the tired old building indicates its inadequacy, however nice the thought). Speculations resolve into two camps. The most enthusiastic are from businessmen, who hope for Jimmy's return as a new charge on the tourist magnet (even in the Reagan rout, more than 35 million potential visitors did vote for Jimmy, including a good number of oldtimers who can stop off on their way to winter in Florida).