“Jimmy Carter was a paradox, my favorite kind of person. He was a human being being human, and owning it.” 

One drizzly Tuesday night in Chapel Hill—April Fool’s Day, 1975—my girlfriend and I were studying in the student union at the University of North Carolina. We’d found a vacant room then shut the door, spreading out books and notes to prepare for upcoming exams.

After a few hours, we needed a break. Walking into the open common area, each of us noticed something we hadn’t seen when coming in: a large punchbowl filled with peanuts. Nobody was protecting it, nor did it seem to be a prank. And so—being college kids, and therefore poor, and always hungry—we walked straight to it and started eating nut after nut, enjoying this salty manna that the Lord had so generously provided.

But not for long. Behind us, double doors swung open from the Great Hall, and people burst forth, surrounding a slight man who was striding straight toward us and that bowl of plenty. He smiled, put out his hand, shook ours heartily, and said, in a soft southern accent, “Hello, I’m Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for president.”