Rant #3,603: Better Man

Well, we are down to what amounts to the final hours and minutes of 2024.

As I have said before, 2024 was not a great year for myself and my family, but it was an improvement over 2023, the absolute worst year of my life.

Therefore, I have to believe that 2025 might not be a spectacular year, but it will be an improvement over 2024 and certainly over 2023.

I have to, at least, think that way.

And as I am writing this, I have to say goodbye to Jimmy Carter, who passed away yesterday at age 100.

I did not like him as a president--I thought he was probably one of the weakest presidents we ever had--but I respected him more as a man.

He lived with brain cancer for how long? But he kept on going, as if to say that this thing wouldn't take him out; rather, he would go out on his own terms.

And I think he did just that.

He could have faded away after his one term as our commander in chief, but he and his wife, Rosalynn, sermed to never be too far away from the news as our elder former president and first lady.

Among their many activities, he and his wife helped build numerous homes for people who needed them, and he actually helped construct these homes, using hammer and nails and getting down in the dirt like others who did this.

He and his family were open to parody--a peanut farmer becoming president, with a seemingly country bumpkin family--but he seemed to take it all in stride, almost expecting his family--including his brother and mother--to gets lots of barbs, as if it was to be expected as part of his job.

And he loved his wife to pieces, and she loved him right back.

There was no question about how strong their marriage was, even after he admitted to Playboy Magazine that he, "lusted after women."

All guys turn their eyes toward pretty women, whether they admit to doing so or not, but that is as far as it usually goes.

What you keep in your head is fine, and he was being honest about it--

But he seemingly had a great marriage; it showed that even after being a married man for decades, he was far from being dead ... and I bet that made his marriage even stronger.

As our president, he had many failings, including how he handled our own hostage crisis in Iran, where numerous Americans were held hostage for 444 days.

He also ordered the failed military rescue, which led not to victory, but to utter defeat, and death.

Again, I never voted for him, but he seemed to be a genuinely good person--

A real mensch, in my estimation, unlike other, subsequent commanders in chief, who have had plenty of baggage to unload before, during and after their runs at the top.

So as 2024 runs out, I salute President Jimmy Carter, who I did not think was a good president, but more importantly, someone who I thought was a good man.

And he might be the last president in my lifetime that I can say that about.