As everyone (most likely) knows by now, President Jimmy Carter passed away yesterday, December 29th. He was the longest living president, living until 100 years old.
Meeting Jimmy Carter in a Delta Air Lines Lounge
President Carter was the only living president that I had never had as my president. His term ended just over a year before I was born. But, he was the only president I actually ever met. With his funeral service coming next week, there will be many people that knew him well giving tributes and many others online sharing their own stories so I wanted to share my little story of meeting President Jimmy Carter.
For whatever people may have thought of him, politically, people always said that he was a perfect Southern gentleman. I got to experience that first hand back in 2008 or 2009 (I didn’t write it down and didn’t get a picture so can’t remember exactly) in a Delta Air Lines Skyclub. I was flying through Detroit and was sitting in one of the lounges there. I had just gotten a coffee and was going to work on somethings when I saw someone out of the corner of my eye kind of working the room on my left.
I didn’t think anything about it because there were always people in the lounges who would run into a colleague or maybe meeting up with colleagues in the club between flights. But when the little entourage of suited men reached the person on my left, I looked up and was shocked to see President Carter shaking hands with people, his Secret Service detail at his side. I quickly stood up when he got to me and shook his hand and we exchanged a couple of words.
He was such a gentleman and it was such a wonderful thing to meet someone who had long left the trappings of the White House and political aspirations yet still enjoyed shaking hands with total strangers. He came off as very genuine and kind and it was, by far, the best experience I had had in a SkyClub. He could have totally retreated from the public eye after his presidency had ended yet, almost 30 years later, he was still meeting people – even those who had never know him as president.
I know many others had met President Carter in similar fashion with Delta themselves running the tweet below yesterday about how he would meet people on the plane with him as well.
Every time Jimmy Carter flew Delta, he shook hands with each person on the plane. Because that’s who he was. Someone who treated people as people. pic.twitter.com/mnWiiDwaZ3
— Delta (@Delta) December 30, 2024
Did you ever meet President Carter, in a plane, lounge or somewhere else?
