The Night Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Slept Over (Exclusive)

I heard a faucet running. It was 5 a.m. Exactly 5 a.m. Not 4:59. Not 5:01. Exactly 5 a.m.

“What’s that?” my wife said groggily. 

“The president’s awake,” I replied. 

“Doesn’t he know what time is?” Alison asked before falling back to sleep.

I was on my own. I reluctantly climbed the stairs and turned the coffee maker on. A moment later, Jimmy Carter came down the stairs and entered my kitchen. 

I didn’t have to ask him if he slept well. He was bright-eyed, obviously happy to begin his day, and caffeine was the last thing he needed. There was nothing strange about his being up at dawn, he said. Once a farmer, still a farmer, always a farmer.

I poured my first coffee of the morning (there would be many) and went out for a walk in my garden with the 39th president of the United States. 

So started the day on Nov. 20, 2012. 

The visit from President and Rosalynn Carter had been a long time coming. A very long time. You see, Carter became my hero when I was very young.

Only 11 years old when Carter lived at the White House, I noticed he was a favorite of my parents. “Jimmy Carter,” my late mom would say, “is a good and decent man.”

My dad would join in. He and Mom described to us the early Cold War days and how fearful they had been of nuclear war. But with Carter in the White House, they said, they now felt a little safer. 

Because of them, I started to read any book I could find on the Man from Plains. Once, in grade 12, I even wrote to Carter at his post-presidential office to tell him of my admiration. I received a signed and dedicated picture back.

After high school and university, I became a reporter at a small-town paper. Every year or so I’d write a letter to President Carter requesting an interview. His staff always turned me down.

Then, one day in the early 2000s, I read a newspaper story that described how Carter taught Sunday school each week. It was open to the public and the former president would greet his guests afterward. Within an hour I had round-trip tickets to Atlanta and had convinced a skeptical friend to come along. We were off.

And that’s how I met Jimmy Carter for the first time. 

I went back to Plains the following year. And the year after that. Soon President Carter had sat for three or four interviews with me. I was working at Queen’s University afterward and I decided to prepare an academic tribute book to both Carters.

Brother Jimmy, as they called him in his hometown, wrote the book’s foreword and personally launched it, delivering a moving speech that special afternoon in his hometown, one I knew well by this point. About 60 friends made the trip along with my wife and I for the event. President Carter joked that he had named me the Plains honorary tourism representative for my part of the world. 

When the university here awarded them honorary degrees in 2012, I contacted my new friends, inviting them to stay with us. They agreed, and my wife and I started to plan for their arrival.

Today people still ask me how one prepares for a presidential visit to their home. It’s simple, I reply. You clean. And then you clean again. When the cleaning is over, you do it again. 

Their motorcade drove up to our house on the morning of Nov. 19, 2012. My neighbors still talk about the day a Secret Service motorcade came around the corner and drove up our street.

As I had promised the Carters, the dress code was jeans, and no officials from the university would be coming over. They could be themselves.

After I took them up to our main bedroom — the Secret Service occupied the main floor and patrolled outside our home, while Alison and I slept on a mattress in the basement — to freshen up after their long flight, the four of us sat around my fireplace sharing stories and some wine.

It meant a lot to me to be able to tell President Carter directly how my parents had always felt safe with him in the White House. He responded with a gentle smile. There was silence, and then Mrs. Carter spoke up. “Art,” she said, “that’s how I felt too.”

Over dinner, I also told my hero that he reminded me of Republican President Herbert Hoover. “I’ve been called a lot of things,” President Carter replied, laughing, “but I’ve never been compared to him!”

So, I told him the story of the time Hoover, also a one-term president, was asked how it felt that in the twilight of his life, so many Americans — even Democrats — were now praising him. 

“What is your secret, Mr. President?” the reporter had asked.

“I outlived the bastards,” Hoover said.

Now, I have seen Jimmy Carter’s toothy smile many times, but never as bright as it was then.  

Another memory involves actor Dan Aykroyd from Saturday Night Live, who famously impersonated President Carter on the show during the latter’s White House years.

Dan lives just north of us and ahead of the Carters coming to town, I invited him to send along a bottle of wine from his vineyard for the couple to enjoy at dinner. So, Dan sent a case, 12 bottles. They arrived at my house a few hours before the Carters did. 

“Mr. President,” I said, “you should know that Dan Aykroyd has provided the wine for us this evening.”

“Dan Aykroyd? From SNL?” Carter replied. 

“Yes, Mr. President, that Dan Aykroyd,” I confirmed.

President Carter’s million-watt smile lit up the room again and he raised his glass. “I’ve earned this one!” he said.

In a tone that was almost conspiratorial, he added that Dan’s impersonations of him back in the day had been pretty good.

Before heading to the campus the next morning for the official ceremonies, both Carters planted ceremonial trees in my garden that Alison and I proudly had plaqued. They still stand tall.

When the time came, I walked my hero to his car as his motorcade idled. I gave him a farewell hug and I thought then, as I do now today with the news that Jimmy Carter has completed his journey, how privileged I am to have called the peacemaker president my friend.

Arthur Milnes is the author of 2022’s 98 Reasons to Thank Jimmy Carter. He is a journalist, public historian and political speechwriter.