THE RESTORATION OF JIMMY CARTER

Sara Pacher

Maybe it's because I, too, was born and raised in a small south Georgia town, but I found sitting down to talk to Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter as comfortable as lazing in a porch swing on a summer afternoon, sipping iced tea. Just such a swing overlooks a roaring mountain stream at the Carters' log cabin retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Along with the cabin's other furniture, the swing was designed and built by the former president, a master woodworker who selects and cuts the trees for such projects from his 160-acre farm. He then strips off the bark and shapes the wood into furniture and other items.

"My daddy was a good man with tools," he recalls, "so learning how to use them was as natural as breathing for us. If something broke, we had to fix it ourselves. You didn't call somebody in to repair something or replace it with something new. We had these skills—all farmers did during the Depression years."

Over the years, Carter has made some 50 household items, about half of which he has given away as gifts. But some pieces still sit around the family's Plains house and have been in use for over 30 years. His wife is quick to point out, however, that his skills improved as time went on. 'When we came home from the Navy in 1953, he built a sofa for the back porch. He used nails then. Now he builds everything without nails. He's studied woodworking and worked at it, and he's made really beautiful furniture for our home—including a pencil-post bed and tables by the side."

His woodworking talent served Carter well during his political campaigns, particularly when meeting factory workers. "You don't have to say but a few things to people who work in a factory before they realize that you, yourself, have been a laborer. It may be a different kind of skill from theirs, but there's a bond, sort of like a brotherhood, among people who work with their hands."

Once he campaigned his way to the presidency, Carter occasionally managed to slip in a few hours at the carpenter's shed at Camp David, because, in his opinion, "What we need in our lives is a stock of factors that never change. I think that skill with one's own hands—whether it's tilling the soil, building a house, making a piece of furniture, playing a violin or painting a painting—is something that doesn't change with the ups and downs of life. And for me, going back to the earth or going back to the woodshop have always been opportunities to reinforce my basic skills. No matter if I was involved in writing a book, conducting a political campaign, teaching at Emory University or dealing with international affairs. I could always go back—at least for a few hours at a time—to the woodshop. That's meant an awful lot to me. It's a kind of therapy, but it's also a steadying force in my life—a total rest for my mind.

"When I'm in the woodshop," he continues, "I don't ever think about the chapter I'm writing or the paragraph I can't complete or the ideas that don't come. I'm thinking about the design of a piece of furniture, how the wood's going to fit together, what joint I'm going to use and whether or not my hand tools are sharp."

In Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter's recently published book, Everything to Gain they explain frankly how they used back-to-basics skills to confront and resolve their painful political defeat, a sudden departure from Washington and their fears of an empty future.

"In the book," Jimmy says, "we try to relate our lives, not to the White House, but to Plains—for a couple of reasons. One, to show the attraction of a small town, and, second, to make it clear that the book is not just about a couple who happened to have been the First Family of the nation; it's also written for the average person who loses a job, has an unexpected career change, has to move to a place not of his or her choice, has a last child leave home. Or for a married couple who suddenly find themselves at retirement age and living together for the first time all day long—not just at night."

The Carters plunged with enthusiasm into such projects as laying a sidewalk and putting a hardwood floor in their unfinished loft. Rosalynn has picked up additional carpentry skills in working with one of their favorite organizations, Habitat for Humanity. This is a housing program for the homeless, helping them to build their own houses together with the help of volunteers.

"And we both spend a good bit of time on our farm," adds Carter. "We take care of the timberlands. Sometimes we go for long walks in the woods. I may see a particular tree that I think would be suitable for four or five—perhaps, seven or eight—chairs or for some other piece of furniture. I usually select a tree close to home, though, since I have to carry the pieces back to the woodshop area.

"One of my favorite kinds of woodworking involves green wood, but there's a tremendous amount of hard labor involved in that. You have to try to handle the different rates at which the wood dries, so the joints get tight and durable. It's the kind of technical problem that appeals to me," says the former nuclear engineer.

Obviously, most of today's young people don't grow up routinely learning to use their hands "as naturally as breathing," as Carter did. But he thinks they still have an advantage his parents' generation lacked.

"Back then, you'd start working at the age of 16 or 18 and work until you died or were physically incapable of working anymore. You began work at sunrise and worked until dark. But, nowadays, you work 40 hours a week, get a couple of weeks off for vacation and then retire at 55,60 or 65. You have so much spare time to take on additional exciting things. Sometimes they can be quite useful things; sometimes just enjoyable; sometimes devoted to serving others. In Everything to Gain we try to present a broad range of activities an average person can undertake. We try to point out that no matter what stage of life you may be in—young, middle-aged or retired—there's the possibility of a constantly expanding field of interest, excitement, challenge, fulfillment and adventure. In this book we encourage people to take on new things that might look very difficult but that become very rewarding once the person is involved. "If you have a crisis of any kind," Rosalynn adds, "one of the best things to do is to learn something new."