No Longer a Way Station

AMERICAN SCENE

For Plains, Ga., a normally placid farming community of 683 citizens, there would never be another day like this one: Election Day, 1976--family reunion and carnival and the world's front page all rolled into one. TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angela was in Plains for the occasion and sent this report:

Plains is customarily a pretty serious workaday kind of world, but for this day the town was roped off from reality. The townsfolk, who believed in Carter back when the rest of the country laughed, had been preparing for the historic event for days. Bank Manager Marvin Nation was tacking up bunting on his building. Billy Carter was leaning on a red pickup truck, giving an interview to a reporter from Rio de Janeiro. The ladies of Plains, in best Southern tradition, had baked up a storm. Rosalynn Carter's mother produced her choice butternut cake a day early for fear she'd be too excited on Election Day. Contractor Robert Abbett was sawing and hammering the stand on which the favorite son would speak.

Main Street--all two blocks of it --was like a Hollywood movie set. Plains residents weary of hearing visitors make that comparison, but the turn-of-the-century roofed sidewalks and flat-facade buildings seem oddly two-dimensional. One suspects that Carter's Worm Farm, the Peanut Museum and the half-dozen other establishments are folded away after a day's shooting. At the end of the street is the crowning bit of make-believe, the period-piece depot that does not deal with trains at all but is Carter's headquarters, festooned with peanut wreaths and campaign paraphernalia. On the freight platform is the rocking chair where Miss Lillian, Carter's already legendary mother, gives her thousandth interview.

Around the corner from Mam Street is the one-room cement block community center with its two blue-curtained voting booths. Not a building anyone would notice, except that it was where Jimmy Carter cast his vote. The man seeking the presidency was not moved ahead of the others; the first man in line was his lifelong friend, Billy Wise, who was waiting when the doors opened.

Behind Carter in line was Jimmy Wallace, a sturdy black man who will turn 64 on Christmas Day. Outside, Wallace lingered, enjoying the scene. "I've known him all his life," he said proudly. "Me and him used to plow the mule together, back when I worked for his Daddy. I told him he'd come a long way, with the help of the Lord." A black nurse's aide smiled and said, "When I was voting I felt good about it. I've known Mr. Carter. He was always nice--a Christian gentleman. And I believe he'll do good." Both of them had helped put into the White House a man they knew personally, whose life had touched theirs, a shining illustration of what Election Day is about.

Plains on this day was swollen with tourists--from Los Angeles, Akron, Germany--all eager to be part of this first page of a new chapter in history. They trailed along as Carter strolled two blocks to the peanut house. They explored Billy Carter's service station. They snapped happily as Miss Lillian rolled by in a Georgia state police car.

Miss Lillian swept up to the polling place, took one look at the line of voters shivering in the brisk wind and declared, "I wouldn't stand in this line for nothin'!" An hour later she tried again, and upon receiving the voluminous ballot said airily, "I don't know what you'd do with all this except paper a barn." Behind the blue curtains she obviously relegated the long list of constitutional changes to the barn: she was closeted only long enough to flip the one lever she cared about.

Plains did not go completely for the man who put it on the map: the final tally was 481 Carter, 99 Ford. For those 99--and in Plains anybody who doesn't wear a Carter button is suspect--life may now be a bit chilly. "I just don't understand it," said a shopkeeper. "Jealousy, I suppose." Said the storekeeper next door: "I couldn't vote for somebody just because he lived here."

In Plains it's more than a matter of loyalty. A Carter victory guarantees a minor boom on Main Street. Contractor Abbett was already thinking about facilities for the Secret Service and Georgia troopers: "I hope I get my share of that work." Angie Stevens, manager of the Back Porch, a post-convention sandwich shop, had a forthright view of Election Day: "If he wins, we'll be here for five more years. If he loses--well, we've had a helluva good time!"

But the changing scene has brought new problems to Plains. At Walters' grocery store they posted a new sign: EFFECTIVE NOV. 1 ALL SALES WILL BE ON CASH BASIS ONLY. Sighed Mrs. Walters: "After 40 years in this store, things are changing. We have to do it."

The sunlit surface of this hamlet in its finest hour is clouded by a dark shadow--the bitter split within the Baptist Church over admitting blacks to membership. June Turner, wife of a deacon who opposes this change, talked about the agony to come, and tears slipped from her eyes. Without speaking his name, she blamed Jimmy Carter for pushing their church "into the spotlight, for putting it into politics." She wore no Carter button. Plains has produced a new President for the '70s, but is still fighting a battle of the '60s.

But that battle is not what preoccupied Plains on Election Day. In the floodlighted movie-set street, thousands milled about, dancing to the jarring sounds of the Zumi rock band, sipping beer, waiting for their President. By the time Carter came home, it was the start of a new day for him and for Plains. The town is no longer just a place you go through on the way to somewhere else. Plains is somewhere now.

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