Dear President Carter,
I would like to extend an invitation to float and fish. I've always wanted the honor but never had the nerve to ask. Your recent news has spurred my courage.
I offer a day of free rowing, a nice lunch and some of the West's best beauty. In return, I want to ask a million questions about your outdoor childhood, presidency and recent - and highly successful - effort to eradicate Guinea gut worm.
Oftentimes on float trips, we play a simple game: If you could row any two people down the river, who'd you take?
Ernest Hemingway and Jimmy Carter is always my answer. Or somebody else and Jimmy Carter. I don't want somebody famous; I want somebody who can fish, and I know you can twirl a fly.
You - and more specifically your book, "An Outdoor Journal: Adventures and Reflections" - helped fuel my fly-fishing education when I moved to Idaho 25 years ago. I share your simple appreciation for the outdoors, the quiet times and need to hunt and fish.
I fished Grebe Lake searching for the same grayling that lured you. I chased gulpers because you had. And I laughed at the idea of a former president swimming accidentally in the Madison River near Quake Lake, the same way I have.
A signed copy of your book has never left my desk.
Folks will always associate you with the Iran hostage crisis and the birth of 24-hour news. The idea of President Ronald Reagan getting the credit for bringing the hostages home rankles me to this day.
People forget you signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act into law.
"Often called the most significant land conservation measure in the history of our nation, the statute protected over 100 million acres of federal lands in Alaska, doubling the size of the country's national park and refuge system and tripling the amount of land designated as wilderness," according to the National Parks Conservation Association.
And then you went on to make a meaningful difference after leaving office. While many end their political careers with monetized speaking tours or K Street jobs, you won a Nobel Peace Prize, built houses, monitored elections and set about to rid the world of disease.
My favorite is your effort to rid the world of the Guinea worm. While AIDS caught the headlines, the worm infected more than 3.5 million Africans annually. Not fatal, it is a painful problem, largely because worms exit the host's body in very painful ways.
Your Carter Center led the effort to strain drinking water through a fabric akin to a parachute. You built wells. There was no flash and no news conferences. It was quiet work for a greater good.
Since you and your center started fighting the worm, the number of infected people has dropped incredibly. There are 11 cases this year.
Imagine if everybody followed your lead, if only on appreciating hunting and the outdoors. Asked why you hunted and fished, you gave this answer:
"My father and all my ancestors did it before me. It's been a part of my life since childhood, and part of my identity, like being a southerner or Baptist."
Well put.
Please come fishing.
Yours,
Rob.
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Rob Thornberry is the managing editor of the Idaho Falls Post Register. He can be reached at rthornberry@postregister.com.
