All the news reports about Jimmy Carter have stirred up a lot of childhood memories. I had just turned 11 when Carter was elected. I was in the fifth grade and still attending the small elementary school close to my house. I still watched Saturday morning cartoons, and in the evenings, I watched shows like The Six Million Dollar Man and Wonder Woman. In many ways, I was still a little kid, but I was changing, and it seemed like the world around me was changing, too.
I was in those dreaded tween years. Movies like Pan's Labyrinth and Let the Right One In, as well as books by Stephen King, such as It, capture the horror of that transitional time. Like most of us at that age, I was beginning to realize the world could be a scary place, and I couldn't always count on my parents and other adults to protect me.
The following year, I had to ride a big yellow bus to a much larger middle school on the other side of town. Many of the kids were older than me, and many were a lot rougher. I heard swear words all the time, and there were a lot of graphic discussions about sex. I saw a lot of bullying, and not just gentle teasing, but some scary shit. Fights would break out, and blood was drawn. I was also exposed to tremendous amounts of homophobia every day, and I had recently realized I was "one of those." I had always been shy around my peers, but I was traumatized in middle school. I never felt safe. I had to go to gym class, which was segregated by sex, and I felt out of place and vulnerable. The sports wasn't just about exercise. It brought out the boys' aggression and need to dominate and prove themselves worthy. I didn't relate. I didn't understand that milieu and feared the boys would discover I wasn't one of them. After seeing the film Close Encounters, I began hoping for, and then expecting, altruistic aliens to take me aboard one of their spaceships and transport me to a kinder and gentler world where I would be loved and wanted. For a couple of years, that was my religion.
It was a frightening time, but there were high points. Realizing I liked boys and beginning to have overt sexual thoughts was exhilarating. I secretly crushed on some of the boys I knew, including some of the mean ones. I had a celebrity crush on Shawn Cassidy, who played Joe on the Hardy Boys. Shawn was older than me, a young adult, but the things I did to him in my imagination would have made him blush.
I was allowed to stay up late when I didn't have school the following day, and I began watching Johnny Carson, Saturday Night Live, and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. In the afternoons, I sometimes watched soap operas with my older sister, such as Days of Our Lives.
I began watching the news with my father and became interested in current events and politics. Nixon had resigned a couple of years before, but at the time, I didn't care. Even though I lived through the Nixon years, I had to learn about his presidency, Watergate, and Vietnam years later. But I paid close attention to Jimmy Carter. I watched his inauguration, and I watched him walk to the White House. I remember how he wore a bulky brown sweater when he delivered his fireside chat about energy conservation. His daughter Amy was just a couple of years younger than me, and I was struck by some of the cruel things adults would say about her. The Carters were from Georgia, and my family was from West Virginia. They sounded a lot more like my family and neighbors than other people on TV. Jimmy Carter's sister Ruth was a faith healer, and his brother Billy was a country mess. Jimmy's mother, Miss Lillian, was a character, too. They all seemed familiar to me.
Jimmy Carter lived to see his 100th birthday. He lived a long life, so it's time to let go and say goodbye. But his death reminds me I'm getting older myself. I'll turn 60 this year, and I don't expect to live as long as he did. The late 1970s was a good while ago, but they were important developmental years for me. I'm glad Jimmy Carter was a role model during that time. When I was younger, Mr. Rogers showed me what it was like to be gentle and compassionate. Then, President Carter displayed a more adult concern and desire to do the right thing. I was lucky to have him at that age. We should all be so lucky now.
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