Reckoning: Jimmy Carter: Rivers & Dreams with Jim Barger, Jr.

It's time for a critical reappraisal of President Carter. Joining me this week is Jim Barger, Jr., coauthor of the new book Jimmy Carter: River & Dreams, Rods, Reels, and Peace Deals, Plus the One that Got Away. Jim knew the late President and spoke about Jimmy Carter the angler, the environmentalist, and why he deserves another look. We also talk about Rosalynn, their relationship, and how fishing played into Carter's life in the White House and beyond. This is the conversation about a man sorely needed in the world right now.

About the book:

For more than half a century, and from Plains to Patagonia, Dr. Carlton Hicks fished with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, their group of loyal guides, and a merry band of best friends and anglers. In 12 stories set in 12 locations around the globe, Jim Barger Jr. and Hicks recount how President Carter and his lifelong friends changed the course of world history, all while casting flies and pursuing the perfect strike.

About our guest:

Jim Barger, Jr. is a nationally recognized trial lawyer who handles complex government investigations, particularly qui tam whistleblower litigation under the False Claims Act.  Straight out of law school, Jim won a ground-breaking $2 million settlement against a major health insurance company employing a then-novel legal theory under the tort of outrage; two years later, he set the record for the largest qui tam case in Alabama history, winning $24.5 million from Southerncare.  Jim holds the records for the largest home health fraud case in U.S. history, securing $150 million from Amedisys in 2014, and the largest hospice fraud case in U.S. history, securing $75 million from Vitas in 2017.  Jim has served as lead trial counsel in more than 100 qui tam whistleblower cases across the country, has testified as a healthcare fraud expert in federal court, and regularly consults with companies on healthcare compliance issues.  He has been quoted by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NPR, and CNN.

Transcript

Jason Herbert (00:01.526)
I'm Jason Herbert and this is a reckoning and our guest today is Jim Barger. are Jim, you're, you're the co-author of a book. This, this book right here that I tried so hard to get my hands on for so long. had to, I had to petition Kyle over better southerner for so long to get, to get a copy. This thing has been selling like crazy. Like they can't keep it in.

Jim Barger Jr (00:09.293)
Yes.

Jim Barger Jr (00:26.978)
Yeah, the first printing sold out that was supposed to last a year sold out in two months. I think that demonstrates the interest people have in the president.

Jason Herbert (00:41.152)
Yeah. it was not just the president, right? It's, it's the, it, I feel like, you know, we can talk about presidents and things like that because presidents have like this larger than life thing. But I feel like reading this book, you really get to get a chance to get a sense to know this man, the soul, if you will, more than, you know, more than any particular title. I just.

Jim Barger Jr (00:50.147)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (01:00.569)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (01:05.292)
You know, President Carter has just always been this guy, at least certainly in my life, as you know, as we were talking before we started recording, as a Southern man, you know, as a guy who kind of grew up, you know, in that tradition, he's just always kind of been this in this liminal space where it's like, this is who he is. And to be able to read a book like this, which I love, like, this is probably not going to go on. There's a whole bunch of fishing books right behind me.

And this is probably not ever going to go onto that shelf because I just, just love this thing so much. have to tell you. and for those of y'all, please, for those of y'all listen, the book we're talking about here is a Jimmy Carter, rivers and dreams, rods, reels and peace deals. the one plus the one that got away. This is, man, this is fun. Jim, before we start talking about this, this thing, you want to introduce yourself and we'll kind of go from there.

Jim Barger Jr (01:36.644)
Thank you.

Jim Barger Jr (01:51.875)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (01:55.534)
Sure. So my name is Jim Barger, Jr. and I am an attorney by trade, but I'm also a writer. I've been a writer my whole life and I've been a fly angler my entire life.

You know, I got to know the president early in my life. He came down to where I live on the small barrier island off the coast of Georgia. And he would retreat there as governor and then as president. So I was about six years old when I met him the first time. And that didn't seem very uncommon for folks down here. He was a guy who he and Rosalind came down quite a bit and kids.

Jason Herbert (02:24.61)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (02:43.96)
families knew him. So that was not, it was not until later that I realized how unique that was, that situation.

Jason Herbert (02:53.378)
You know, I never had the honor of being the president and I was, I was a guest on a podcast last year and I was talking about history and so forth. And one of the questions they asked was like, Hey, if you could sit down and have dinner with any one person in history, who would you talk to? And I said, Jimmy Carter all day long, just not even a question. you know, but I've got friends in Georgia, my very good friend, Chris bar. He said national park ranger out there. and you know,

Jim Barger Jr (03:20.078)
What park is he?

Jason Herbert (03:22.542)
He's now in South Carolina. He's now at reconstruction era, South, uh, national park out in Beaufort. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I, I, I got to say Chris, I'll go on a tangent here for a second. The work that national park Rangers do to tell the story of this country and Chris, I've seen a lot of them. Chris is the best of the best. I've never seen anybody like him. Um, but you know, he's, met the president and he would just talk about how, you know, how easy it was to get to meet him and just how approachable.

Jim Barger Jr (03:23.842)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And Charleston near Buford. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Herbert (03:52.942)
he was, you know? But at six years old, I'm guessing you're not really thinking about that so much. like, here's just another guy, you know? It's nice.

Jim Barger Jr (03:57.828)
Yeah, he was just a parent who walked into the room, you know, when we were all being babysat. Now, I do recall thinking, you know, knowing that, this is the president and seeing the Secret Service agents and realizing that that was a unique thing. Years later, when I met him and spent time with him again, I didn't think he would remember that, but he,

He certainly said that he did and he seemed to be genuine and he always, you he was the guy who promised never to tell a lie. he said he remembered meeting me as a young man and that was special too.

Jason Herbert (04:42.286)
You know, when you actually, so I have to ask you, I've never met a president yet, or maybe no, not yet. Maybe some people I know already have, but, when you, know, as an adult, you know, it would engage with president Carter. You know, was there an aura that you were talking to the president or was it, was there familiarity? Like, who was this man?

Jim Barger Jr (04:47.01)
Hehehe.

Jim Barger Jr (04:55.353)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (05:04.356)
He certainly had an aura around him. know, you say, and so did Rosalind, but when you say he was, you know, people say he was approachable and easy. He definitely was, but he also had these piercing blue eyes and he would fix them on you and not let go in a way that was a bit unnerving, you know, because he

Jason Herbert (05:08.664)
Okay.

Jason Herbert (05:25.55)
Mm.

Jim Barger Jr (05:34.176)
He really, he demanded a lot of himself. He committed as a young man to learn something new every day and he did that for his entire life. And he also had this situation when he was just out of, when he was in the Navy and was being auditioned by Admiral Rickover to be part of the nuclear program.

And the admiral was famous for really putting people through grueling interviews. And in fact, would set up the chairs so it would slide forward so you're always falling out of your chair while you're talking to him. And he would ask just random things to find out what you knew, whether it was about opera or it wasn't just about nuclear physics. So the last question.

Jason Herbert (06:04.428)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (06:33.06)
Carter got from him was, did you do at the Naval Academy, did you do your very best? And this is a guy who was in the top 10 % of his class at the Naval Academy and Carter had to think about it and he said no sir, you know. And then Rickover said, and I may be paraphrasing this, why not?

And that question haunted Jimmy Carter for the rest of his life. He was always trying to do his very best. And you could see that when you talked to him, he was trying to make wonder if you're the type of person who does your very best. And so, you know, I said he was definitely approachable, but this was a very tough man, a man of the Great Depression, last president we ever had that grew up without running water.

Jason Herbert (07:26.626)
Mm.

Jim Barger Jr (07:29.828)
grew up without indoor plumbing, know, whose day started at 4 a.m. and went into the nighttime working in the fields, you know. So Carter was a different breed than I would say any president we've had in my lifetime.

Jason Herbert (07:54.382)
You know, the thing that comes to my mind is you're telling me about this story. And I think I've heard the story before about with this, you know, interrogation with Rick with rec over, right? You know, Carter has always seems to be me, you know, and I was born in 77, right? So I don't really remember Carter's presidency as a child. He was kind of floating around as I grew up, you know, but, um, you know,

Jim Barger Jr (08:01.506)
With Rick over. Yeah.

Jim Barger Jr (08:15.096)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jason Herbert (08:21.544)
I came to know him more as a man, as you become more aware of the world around you and things like that. But the thing that always kind of came to me was the fierce integrity of President Carter, right? And just, really my exposure to him in real time was his work with the Habitat with Humanity and the works that he was doing as an ambassador and things like that.

Jim Barger Jr (08:25.664)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (08:45.752)
I'll tell you, know, Jim, I've got two young boys. My boys are 17 and 12 right now. My younger boy is about to be 13 next month. And there's this entire debate going on right now. If you watch social media or read anything right now about masculinity and the virtues of men and all this stuff, right. And there seems to be in my mind, or pretty apparent that on one side of the aisle, you've got these ideas of these hyper masculine guys. He's like bullheaded dudes.

Jim Barger Jr (09:00.664)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (09:15.058)
When I look at the late president, know, what I want from my own boys is to model that, you know, where it's like this first and foremost empathetic human being who worked his tail off, right, committed to education, service of his country, right. And I like to think that he did do the best he could, you know. I think it allowed to I think here's here's the thing I love about your book.

Jim Barger Jr (09:27.428)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (09:33.913)
Yeah.

Jason Herbert (09:45.068)
Because I think that as a historian, we are desperate need of reconceptualizing Carter's presidency, his life. I actually think he is one of the great presidents. When you look at what he had to encounter as president.

You know, there's this knock on, there was always this, this, this almost to cliches. It's an easy way out, Jim, when people say, he's good man, but wasn't a great president. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? You look at what he had to encounter, what he had to deal with. Tell me, Jim, if there's another man on the planet who could have done a better job than this man, cause I don't see it. You know?

Jim Barger Jr (10:29.732)
No, no, you know, he made mistakes and people want to talk about the mistakes. But you know why people are able to talk about the mistakes? Because he admitted them. You know, and we have presidents and leaders and senators and congressmen now who they don't ever admit their mistakes. And that's, know, if you want to, I mean, I hate to frame these things in terms of masculinity.

Jason Herbert (10:34.368)
Absolutely.

Jason Herbert (10:40.757)
Absolutely.

Jim Barger Jr (10:59.392)
except to address this topic that people are using it, you know, to there but There's nothing more bold and human You know then to admit your mistakes it demonstrates somebody who's strong in their character and strong in in the knowledge of who they are and tough tough as nails you have to be tough to admit your mistakes mistakes

Jason Herbert (11:00.332)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (11:05.613)
Yes, sir.

Jim Barger Jr (11:28.118)
It's a very adolescent thing to not admit your mistakes. It shows a lack of human growth. But you would talk about what people conceive of as masculine. We haven't a president anywhere close in my lifetime or even maybe going all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt. Carter, he was a

First to go down Bulls Loose Rapid in a tandem kayak, dangerous, know, deadly river. He camped in some of the most harrowing places in the Amazon and the Black Canyon. He, you know, he was an avid angler, avid hunter, avid woodworker. He built all of the furniture in his home. I mean, when I visited him in his home, we're there seeing the furniture that he made.

So these folks who duff around on the golf course can't even come close to that type of what is perceived to be masculine. But the really interesting thing is I think it has something to do with his upbringing. know, he had a very fierce demanding father who was a farmer who expected him to be up in the morning.

You know, one of the things he had to do first thing in the morning was go over and change his aunt's, great aunt's bed pan at her house and then come back, feed the chickens, all these things. And Carter always remembered one day that he was sick and everyone else was out in the peanut fields. And his father came home berating him for, you know, taking the easy way out. But meanwhile, he had a mother who was, you know, she was

a midwife. She went and delivered most of the babies in their community and also to remember and realize that Carters were white landowners in an all-black community. didn't have any, no one else in archery was white except for his family. And so his mother would go in and she didn't matter whether it was black or white in a highly segregated world.

Jim Barger Jr (13:53.922)
delivered these babies and she accepted people sometimes in the front room against the mores of the time which would make President Carter's father very angry. But he had to defer to Miss Lillian because she was tough, you know? And she earned the right by who she was to have her guests in the front house. But then the third person that raised him was a woman named Rachel Clark.

Jason Herbert (14:07.266)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (14:12.27)
You

Jim Barger Jr (14:23.012)
I don't know if you know about Rachel, but she was a black sharecropper and she was, President Carter considered her to be his third parent. And he spent many nights in that home on a pallet on the floor instead of in his own home. And it was Rachel Clark who really taught him to be a fisherman. And she, he said that Rachel Clark was a

Jason Herbert (14:24.084)
Mm-hmm. No, no, tell me.

Jim Barger Jr (14:51.264)
He still at the end of his life said Rachel Clark was the finest angler he'd ever known. So they would go fish together. You know, he learned a lot of the so-called masculine skills from this female sharecropper that was his neighbor.

Jason Herbert (15:11.246)
I love to hear that, Jim. That is, you know, and I think it's through stories like this, we get to get a sense of like who these people really are, whether we're talking about the president or Rosalind or, you know, anybody else. And I want to talk about a bunch of them if we can today. I don't want to the whole book away by any means, because I want people to out and buy this book as fast as they can. I may have to buy a second one just so can show it off on my bookshelf, but just like look what I've got.

Jim Barger Jr (15:21.732)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (15:38.19)
I've already been bragging to my friends that I have. This has already made the rounds at work, I promise you. like, oh, look what I have. There are folks I work with who were big Carter fans and should be. But I want to ask you about this. How does this book, this fishing biography of Carter's life, if you will, I don't quite know how to say it, how does this come to life? Because you're the co-author here.

Jim Barger Jr (15:41.965)
nice.

Jim Barger Jr (15:58.52)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (16:05.976)
Yeah.

Jason Herbert (16:06.542)
Dr. Carlton Hicks is part of this story as well. How does this story come to play? How does this book come into life?

Jim Barger Jr (16:09.527)
Absolutely

Well, it was very organic in its conception. It was 2020. So, well, I'll take you back a little bit.

Jason Herbert (16:16.302)
Mm.

Jason Herbert (16:24.418)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (16:26.018)
The cart in 19... I'll take you a lot of way back. 19... Yeah, we'll go back to... It's 1980 and Carter has lost the election. And he's down. I mean, I'm not a psychologist or, you I don't know about these things, but I think it's fair to say in the colloquial term, he was depressed. You know, he was beaten down.

Jason Herbert (16:30.606)
Go all the way back, we got time.

Jason Herbert (16:36.974)
Hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (16:54.656)
Many of the things that he had accomplished, people had ignored. Many of them he had accomplished as president. He knew that having done them were going to cost him the presidency, but that they would pay dividends for our generation and beyond. Like the Alaska Lands Act. They burned Carter and effigy over the Alaska Lands Act. He preserved 150 million acres.

And at that time, in the time that he did it, they put up pictures at the Alaska State Fair of Jimmy Carter and the Ayatollah Khomeini. And you could pay to throw bottles at these pictures. And there was a massive pile of glass under Carter's and a small under the Ayatollahs. And this is while the hostages were being held. So, but he did it anyway. And he got it pushed through.

And he's, and many years later, story in the book about how, you know, the people of Alaska turned to their, changed their mind and realized what a benefit it was to them for what he did. So I won't give that story away, but it's a very touching story in the book. But, you know, he had done all of these things, the Panama Canal Treaty, he got blistered for the Panama Canal Treaty. And every president before had

Jason Herbert (18:18.913)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (18:22.116)
tried to and knew that it was something Republican and Democrat alike that we needed to divest ourselves of the canal and that it would save untold lives and potential conflicts in Central America to do that. And yet he had advisors tell him this is political suicide and he reached across the aisle and Senator Howard Baker, was Republican, who was running for president.

And probably would have won the nomination for president, the Republican nomination over Reagan if he hadn't gone along with Carter and pushed the Panama Canal Treaty. I worked for Senator Baker, my first job as a lawyer. And I remember him telling me that when I asked him about his relationship to Carter, his response was that Jimmy Carter was relentless. I will never forget the way he said that word, relentless.

He said it like he was chewing on a dry piece of meat. And he knew it, it may have been the thing that cost both men the presidency, because Reagan pounced on them about the treaty and giving away. And so he first defeated Baker and then he defeated Carter, but there were a lot of other issues going on. But you can imagine leaving the White House thinking, I just got rejected soundly by the American people and I've done all of these things.

Jason Herbert (19:34.552)
Mmm.

Jim Barger Jr (19:52.652)
I did the best I could. did my very best. And I have accomplished things for posterity, but you know, they're promising to roll them back and what's going to happen? he and Rosalind and Amy in May of that year, just a few years after he left the White House, they packed up in a camper van and they went drove all the way up.

to Western Pennsylvania to Spruce Creek where their friend Wayne Harpster had a dairy farm. you know, again testament to Carter's ability to reach across party lines, Wayne is a still a adamant Republican. so, but they went up there and he and Carter were best friends and they

fished the creek for a week. The rest of their family joined them and at the end of the week, President Carter and Rosalind climbed up onto a hill overlooking the pasture there where all the dairy cattle were and the stream goes through and they started to think about and talk about what they would do with the rest of their lives. And you know, that was the germ of the idea of the Carter Center. There's also

story that he tells later and where he woke up with the blueprint for the Carter Center and what it would do but it was in that trip that he kind of got his groove back and realized what he could do what they could do together well they went every year after that in May to Spruce Creek never missing a year and my friend Carlton Hicks always went with him

Jason Herbert (21:27.351)
Hmm

Jim Barger Jr (21:47.256)
Carlton is from here, St. Simons. He's been in St. Simons. He's been the eye doctor here since the early sixties. And he volunteered on Carter's campaigns, all of them, beginning with the first failed governor campaign, gubernatorial campaign. And he's spent many nights in the White House, hung out with the Carters and Willie Nelson, has just these fantastic stories that I had always heard.

So from him at home and so fast forward to 2020 and the pandemic is getting into full effect. There's shutdowns, we're all complying with the shutdown. The Carters can't make it to Spruce Creek. That is clear for their age that it's not advisable for them to do that.

So we decided to go anyway. Dr. Hicks, my father, Jim Barger Sr., and myself, and another friend of ours, Tom Sayer. We drove up from, we got up at four o'clock in the morning and drove the 13 hours. We put our masks on when we stopped at the gas stations, but otherwise we didn't stop and see anybody.

went straight to the cabin at Spruce Creek and we fished while we were there for about a week and we, know, Dr. Hicks and Wayne would tell these wonderful stories about all their trips around the world with the Carters fishing and at one point in the trip Dr. Hicks brought out a bamboo fly rod and inscribed on the fly rod it said

in black cursive, James Earl Carter. And he brought out a box of flies, an old tin box of flies, and said, these are the flies that President Carter gave to me before we came on the trip. And these, they're all tied by him. These are his hand tied flies. Who wants to take a go with his rod?

Jason Herbert (24:08.056)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (24:12.822)
one of these flies and see if you can catch a fish in Spruce Creek. So we all took turns and caught fish in his honor. It became sort of a tradition that we did. We've done many years since then. I think we may have missed one year, but over the course of those trips and sitting on that porch at Spruce Creek, Dr. Hicks and I decided, I told him, got to write these stories down. We got to make it a book, whether even if it's just a book for

your kids and my kids and whoever else we need to do this and so I happened to mention it one day that I was thinking about that to my editors and publishers at the Bitter Southerner because I wrote for them, I'm a contributing writer for them and they pounced on it and said they wanted to publish it so that's how it came together.

Jason Herbert (25:12.098)
Now I have to tell you, in my line of work here with the podcast and certainly as a scholar, I see so many biographies come through. My friend Lindsay Trubinsky just wrote a tremendous one about John Adams. But I have rarely seen the excitement for a book like this.

Jim Barger Jr (25:24.088)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (25:34.726)
that comes around. I think, again, this is such a person. know, Jim, it just feels like such a personal read to me when I know you're kind of reading the stories through Carlton's voice, through your own. And of course, they're all centered around Jimmy and Rosalind. I want to ask you, you know, we're talking about the Bitter Southern. You and I are both from the South, right? And proudly so.

Jim Barger Jr (25:44.409)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (25:55.094)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jason Herbert (25:59.31)
You know, it's a thing for me that wherever it is that I go, right? It's like, you know, I'll tell you, I did my graduate school up in Minnesota, that's where I my PhD. And it was really the first time I felt like being from the South was like being from Mars. was like people up there just, you know, people up there just looked at us like we're from some other country, you know, like, like, like, wouldn't a lot of Southern guys up there as me and one of the professors, one of my...

Jim Barger Jr (25:59.778)
Absolutely.

Jim Barger Jr (26:20.408)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (26:27.374)
one of my professors who's from North Carolina, but aside from that, it was us. You but I wonder, you know, you think about Jimmy Carter and certainly a southerner is one of the immediate, I think first and foremost, his tremendous faith, which we'll talk about here in a bit, but like, how does his identity as a southerner kind of manifest in like, not just his presidency, but like himself as an angler? Because, you know, I think as I started to come, I've only picked up fly fishing since I come out to

Jim Barger Jr (26:38.947)
Yeah.

Jason Herbert (26:57.08)
Colorado about a year and a half ago. So I'm kind of wondering, is there something about being from Georgia? Is it manifested in the way that he fishes or looks at the world? How does him being from the South affect the way that he went about the rest, engaging the world around him?

Jim Barger Jr (26:57.358)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (27:14.53)
Yeah, well, I would say he was, in particular, he was a rural southerner. being a rural southerner, folks from other parts of the world and other parts of the country can sort of identify if you're from a tiny little town that depends on farming and that has a hunting and fishing tradition.

Jason Herbert (27:23.32)
Yes, sir.

Jim Barger Jr (27:42.038)
as many of the small southern towns do and a lot of towns out west as well. The Midwest and even in the far northeast. But yeah, he was a southerner and he came from this rural tradition that involved hunting and fishing both as such way of getting your sustenance, particularly coming out of the Great Depression, but also as

Jason Herbert (27:45.292)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (28:10.402)
Yes, sir.

Jim Barger Jr (28:12.118)
recreation and communion with nature. And it may seem strange, but it's still a tradition where we're from that you kind of define your worth by your ability to catch fish. If you can't catch fish and you're from a small southern town, then you've got

Jason Herbert (28:35.011)
Hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (28:42.282)
And you've got problems. People look at you funny. And that transcends gender, you know, talking about Rachel Clark was this great angler that taught him how to fish. And it was not fly fishing, but meat fishing, coming back with enough fish to feed your family. And women in the South were frequently the ones who caught the fish to put on the table.

Jason Herbert (28:57.986)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (29:13.396)
I did my, before I became a lawyer, I did my master's degree study, my first graduate study was in Southern Studies. I got a master's degree in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi. I spent most of my time living on another barrier island just north of us, Sappalo Island, which is inaccessible by car, you know, you have to take a ferry to get there.

Jason Herbert (29:36.034)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (29:40.532)
And it has one of the last intact Gullah Geechee communities on the coast. And I lived with a family there, the Bailey family. In fact, if you haven't read this book, you can write this down and read this book. Cornelia Bailey, who was my mentor, Cornelia Bailey, she wrote a book in the 90s called God, Dr. Buzzard.

Jason Herbert (29:57.56)
Tell me.

Jim Barger Jr (30:09.25)
and the Bolito man. And it's about her life as a saltwater Geechee on Sappalo Island. And I had the privilege of being with her every morning when she would write it in longhand on this yellow legal pad and read over it with her and talk about it with her. And then I would go out and visit with the basket makers and the

fishnet makers and all the different craftspeople in the community. But there was one family there, large family, the largest family with the most kids at the time, and a woman named Mary Bailey, son is a good friend of mine actually, having a very storied NFL career, and I'm having dinner with him and his wife right after this.

because they've moved back here. Alan Bailey played for the Chiefs and then he played for the Falcons. his mother was the best angler on all of Sapilla because she was feeding those kids and she was going to get that fish. If you saw Mary Bailey, and it's true today, I wouldn't want to embarrass her, but if you saw her at a fishing hole at a particular time, particular day, you might want to write that down because you know that's where the fish are going to be.

Jason Herbert (31:21.93)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (31:37.176)
the tides and the conditions. you know, I think this is a long answer to your question, but that's.

I think Carter recognized that early on in his life that this is one of the ways you demonstrate your worth, but it's also one of the ways you demonstrate and commune with the earth and commune with creation, commune with God ultimately, which was his.

barometer. So yeah, I think it's incredibly important to Carter. He didn't play golf. He didn't care about winning games. He played tennis. I will say that he's a highly competitive tennis player. His parents on that farm, they scratched out a dirt tennis court and people would come and play, which seems odd, doesn't it? But it was a thing. He played tennis. He jogged.

mostly he fished and he also bird hunted. kept bird dogs. When he was in the, I'm a bird dog guy, have bird dogs. He kept, when he was in the White House, he had, kept his string of bird dogs back in planes and he had somebody else watch over him, take care of him. So when he got back, he'd be able to have his bird dogs. He was Southern to the core. And, and it also informed, the other thing that it informed about President Carter is

Jason Herbert (32:45.229)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (33:07.914)
He recognized the horrors that are also attendant to our region, I think. And as a result of that, his implicit understanding that the farmland that he owned had been taken from the indigenous people not that many generations back from him, and by force, and that people had died being forced out.

Jason Herbert (33:14.787)
Yes, sir.

Jim Barger Jr (33:36.364)
in that exodus and he implicitly also understood that thereafter his ancestors had enslaved people and that there was a legacy that had to be overcome and I think that's another one of those things going back to your so-called, you know, the so-called masculinity that people are talking about all the time. He recognized he had a serious debt to pay and it didn't bother him to admit it and I think

That's something that you hear over and over again right now is, I don't want to take on the debts of my ancestors. I don't even want to admit the debts, or admit the wrongs. And it wasn't just a matter of paying a debt. I think President Carter recognized that, you know, the only way we can progress as a society is to move forward and acknowledge these things and try to change them.

And so his identity as a Southerner informed every bit of that. His desire to create peace, his desire to bring people together. They were all based on tacit acknowledgement of who he was and how he was grounded in history and in a particular place.

Jason Herbert (35:01.24)
Jim, were just talking, you know, we're talking about the idea of like, you know, fishing to provide for your family. You can't see it up here, but my grandfather's remains are actually inside of this creation of a catfish. My entire family comes from running trot lines on the Kentucky Lake and Tennessee River and so forth. I know you're familiar with these areas and such, and I certainly relate to that. Why fly fishing? Did Jimmy ever talk about why?

Jim Barger Jr (35:10.454)
Mmm.

Jim Barger Jr (35:15.788)
Yeah.

Jason Herbert (35:30.55)
because so much of the book talks about, you know, it talks about with the fly rod in his hand. What was the appeal for him for this particular style of fishing? He goes all over the world. They're fishing off for all kinds of stuff. Chat from Patagonia. I'm dying to get down there. I need this. I need this yellow Dorado in my life. More particular on the wall. Actually, as soon as that happens, all these books are going to go away. It's going to be pictured me gripping and grinning. But why fly rod?

Jim Barger Jr (35:32.942)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (35:42.126)
Yeah.

Hehehehe

Jim Barger Jr (35:48.418)
Hahaha!

Yeah.

Jim Barger Jr (35:56.162)
There you go.

Jason Herbert (35:59.918)
Why did Jimmy response? Why did he take up the fly?

Jim Barger Jr (36:03.95)
Well, I think there are, you know, I've read a lot of his writings and I've discussed it with him as well. One of the things, I think there two things that are happening there. One, President Carter loved to challenge himself and to be challenged, you know? And he said in, this is a paraphrase, but in his book,

an outdoor journal which was published I think in the early to mid 90s. He pointed out that

there needs to be some difficulty and some potential for failure for it to be of interest to him. He wanted to try the hard things and there's a lot of that in the book about the one that got away, which is also a metaphor obviously for what got away from him politically. But he sought the hard things and

know, fly fishing.

is there's a particular skill set that has to be developed. in many ways with fly fishing, you're deliberately feeding a fish. Fly anglers talk about feeding the fish. It's not so much there's an attractant in the water that's drawing the fish in. You're looking at the fish, you're trying to find the fish, and you're trying to put that food directly

Jason Herbert (37:30.253)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (37:43.796)
in the line of sight of that fish in a way that it looks... And so it can be a lot more challenging. Now, I'm sure you figured out as I have, I like to catch fish myself. you know, and I have found that in many circumstances, blackfishing is the best method. I mean, it didn't originate to try to challenge people. It originated in trout streams, chalk streams in England and because...

Jason Herbert (38:11.106)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (38:13.028)
you couldn't get the tiny fly on the water any other way. Then we've adapted it to saltwater angling. And I think, I'm sure you probably have experienced this as an angler, once you get into it, you keep wanting to try to catch different species and you keep moving. I think he wasn't much different than the rest of us as anglers in the sense that he got hooked on the idea of

Jason Herbert (38:34.264)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (38:41.942)
of touching these creatures, engaging with these creatures, learning about them, learning about their habitats, and it just becomes addictive like bird watching or any other type of thing that where you're trying to commune with nature. I think fly fishing is, and also once you get past the point where you are fishing to sustain yourself and you realize, okay, I've got to release, if I'm gonna make this be

something that is sustainable, I'm going to have to release these fish or not fish at all. And fly fishing lends itself to catch and release. So I think it's a natural evolution.

Jason Herbert (39:24.706)
Yeah.

Jason Herbert (39:28.206)
Yeah, you know, I can't help but think about the thoughts that President Carter had, because I find that when I'm fly fishing, the aspect of fishing, it's demanding, not in a negative way, but it requires my concentration. Right. And then in doing so, I'm able to, it's this odd thing about where I'm having to concentrate on what I'm doing and therefore freeing up my mind to actually think about other things in this weird kind of, you know, there's this odd release when it comes from fly fishing.

Jim Barger Jr (39:41.036)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (39:51.085)
Yeah.

Jason Herbert (39:58.318)
We can't talk about Jimmy though, without talking about Rosalind, right? She also throughout the book, you talk about her. She's fishing along. What is her relationship to fishing? She seems like she is just as very capable herself and enjoys the pursuit, am I right?

Jim Barger Jr (40:00.739)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (40:05.698)
Yeah. Yes.

Jim Barger Jr (40:20.02)
Absolutely, she is very passionate or was a very passionate fly angler and you know you hear this said by especially by fly fishing instructors I've never had a you know actual course in fly fishing but I know guys and women who teach and people tend instructors tend to say women are easier to teach when it comes to fly fishing

casting in particular because they don't force it the same way that men try to force it. know, the rod does all the work. We want to just beat it against the wind and you know, really the tip of the rod is letting the line unfurl and come back again. Whether that's unique to female gender or not, that is anecdotal from, I hear that all the time from people who teach fly fishing.

Jason Herbert (41:19.533)
Mmm.

Jim Barger Jr (41:20.426)
But President Carter readily admitted that she might have been the better angler than he was, but he was so fiercely competitive. He always wanted to beat her. They were competitive with one another very. but in, in Rosalind was very competitive too. I remember sitting at their house talking about while writing the book and was, President Carter and I were talking about.

fishing and the pattern of our discussion was going back and forth between the two of us, you know, as that sense to happen and she was sitting right next to him. And she finally just broke, you know, broke in. And as I said, you know, he had this way of locking you with his eyes. He couldn't really look away. you know, normally I would want to bring everybody in, but she sat there probably for about five minutes and wasn't part of the conversation. And she finally just broke in and said,

Jason Herbert (41:58.638)
Mm.

Jim Barger Jr (42:18.996)
I was a fine angler myself. Dr. Hicks was with me and she said, wasn't I Carlton? And he said, yes. Their fishing days were The sad part about that statement was was implicit that their fishing days were over. But she was a fine fly angler and she enjoyed trout fishing I think the most.

She was good at spey casting for salmon the You stop and think about some of the things they did he was I want to say 93 and she was 89 maybe but your she was turning 90 or maybe I'm getting these but they were in their late 80s early 90s when they went to fish for Atlantic salmon in Russia

on the Arctic Circle and it's not getting dark until two o'clock in the morning and President Carter's the last one, first one in and last one out at 2 a.m. and at that age and they're standing in the river between the two of them they caught I think it was 50 Atlantic salmon in those five days so that's you know I don't know if you ever caught an Atlantic salmon

Jason Herbert (43:20.749)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (43:40.376)
Good lord.

Jim Barger Jr (43:47.576)
but they fight harder than all of the Pacific species and casting for them is brutal. You're standing in that water casting over and over and over again, just the casting alone. But if you hook a good Atlantic salmon, it might take you into your backing several times, 30 minute, hour long fight. Can you imagine doing that at 90? Can you imagine?

Jason Herbert (43:48.278)
No sir.

Jason Herbert (43:58.894)
Crazy.

Jason Herbert (44:13.454)
can't imagine doing that at 47, Jim.

Jim Barger Jr (44:14.308)
Can you imagine your parents doing that? Your mother out there? My mother's tough, but she wouldn't be doing that. In Russia, after all the travel they had to do to get there and into the wilderness and camping along the riverside, they're not staying in some posh lodge. So these people were tough, and they were passionate about fishing. mean, it wasn't just a side thing or just something that they did.

Jason Herbert (44:22.604)
man.

Jason Herbert (44:34.158)
Mmm.

Jim Barger Jr (44:44.216)
It was an obsession in some ways.

Jason Herbert (44:48.046)
Well, you you talk about Russia here, and we already talked about Patagonia a second ago. We're talking about Colorado. One of the things I absolutely love about the book, the way the book is laid out, you you're flipping through the book and it's like Rocky Mountains, you know, Argentina. It's like, I read this book and it feels like I'm on a quest with the president as well. Did the president have a favorite place to fish or a favorite fish he enjoyed the most?

Jim Barger Jr (44:49.699)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (44:59.733)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (45:17.87)
Well, of all the trips that they went on, he said that that trip that I just described for Atlantic salmon was his favorite. And then another trip to Russia on the opposite end of Russia in Kamchatka, where they fished for wild rainbows. You catch a 30-inch rainbow, which is like climbing Everest or something. It's the thing that trout anglers...

Jason Herbert (45:21.539)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (45:35.468)
Well.

Jim Barger Jr (45:48.036)
aspire to. And that's one of the places where you can do it without, you know, it's not an uncommon thing to make that happen there as it is in other places. those two trips I think were his favorite of all the trips in the book.

Jim Barger Jr (46:09.162)
He loved saltwater angling, but I think trout fishing was his favorite. He went on more trout fishing trips than any others. He went every year to Spruce Creek. Spruce Creek was definitely large in his life. It was one of the few places he could retreat. When he was president, they went to Spruce Creek.

Jason Herbert (46:35.566)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (46:36.258)
and it carried him all the way through to the end of his life, those trips to Spruce Creek. I think, I don't think he ever said this is my favorite species, but I think trout in general. And then of course, the Andromedas fish, those were big to him too.

Jason Herbert (46:58.456)
You know, we talk about yourself, Dr. Hicks, Rosalyn. I'm interested, and you talk about this in the book, certainly, but I think one of the things our listeners would be interested in hearing is, like, Carter had these amazing foreign policy, you know, things that he did during his presidency. Can you talk about how phishing factored into the president's foreign policy?

Jim Barger Jr (47:13.166)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (47:22.958)
Well, there are a couple of times when he was president that he tried to use phishing.

Jason Herbert (47:29.313)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (47:32.748)
the most sort of, I guess, it's not very well known that he tried to do this, it looms large in his presidency. During the Camp David peace accords, he arranged for a fishing trip for Sadat and Begin. And these men were at each other's throat.

Jason Herbert (47:48.738)
Yes,

Jim Barger Jr (48:02.904)
constituencies, the generals that were with them on both sides, and the aides were all very, so much at each other's throats, to a point where, you know, he had to separate everybody and just go back and forth. And that's what, it still is what's taught in mediation techniques. He did those techniques that Carter developed during the Peace Accords. But he also thought, well, we can get together and do some things that...

where we won't be talking about what we're doing. Maybe we can do hit that moment of Zen that you were talking about where you're concentrating so much on reading the water, finding, you know, making sure that you can get the cast, get the proper drift, mend your line, set the hook, land the fish that you don't really have time to think about the things that are bothering you and that are occupying

your mental space and that are causing you stress and then as you pointed out what tends to happen is your subconscious does start to go into those things and solve them in a much more logical and dispassionate way. It's what I have found. think President Carter was hoping for that moment with these two guys but it got so heated that he had to cancel the trip.

but in a stroke of brilliance instead of taking him fishing, took them to...

the battlefield. took them to to go to get to Gettysburg. And he and it was at Gettysburg that he you know they were at such a low moment he thought everybody was going to go home and there wouldn't be peace. But on that battlefield walking that field and all of those generals and and and the leaders on both sides had studied that battle as you know you would

Jim Barger Jr (50:07.488)
in military history, and so they knew everything about it. And they started to chat about the battle instead of the other things that they were going through.

Jason Herbert (50:09.985)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (50:23.072)
At some point, it looked like there was a little bit of light there, but Sadat still wasn't budging. He wasn't really, he was cold, or he seemed cold, until Carter and the group realized that he was just so deep in thought, and he started to recite.

the Gettysburg Address from memory to that group and everybody realized, okay, we've got to go back to the drawing board. So, phishing was the idea that didn't work in that sense, but you know, it morphed into another idea that paid off for the president. I'd say, you know, Carter used phishing more in his post presidency work than he did during the presidency though.

Jason Herbert (51:18.988)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (51:21.464)
You know, there more anecdotes about that that we uncovered than we did during his presidency.

Jason Herbert (51:32.878)
Yeah, you know, actually, so I wanted to talk about that, you know, because his presidency is, you know, he's present. He was president for four years. I had the better part of it, 40 years since then, maybe more than, um, in which he's, lived. You know, can we talk about the role of fishing plays after 1980? And is that entirely a recreational thing? Is that a.

Jim Barger Jr (51:34.978)
Yeah.

Jim Barger Jr (51:39.17)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (52:01.42)
relationship thing, like what role does fishing play in the lives of Jimmy and Rosalind, you know, in the last second half of their lives?

Jim Barger Jr (52:10.444)
It was very large. I it was a private thing, but it was very large in their lives. They did multiple fishing trips a year. they were so busy with the Carter Center and with Habitat that, you know, I think about my life today and how many fishing trips I'm able to get together with my friends.

And I'm not nearly as even remotely as highly scheduled as they were. And yet they never failed to do these trips year in, year out, multiple trips with the same group of people. So when you talk about relationships, I think it very much was relational. Now I will say that I think President Carter would have done those trips by himself. So, I mean, I think it is also,

Jason Herbert (52:39.831)
Right?

Jim Barger Jr (53:06.784)
he had a passion for doing this and then he gathered a small group of people around him to do it with him and they were not influential people he wasn't going out necessarily with you know he was friends with Ted Turner and he was friends with all of these other highly influential people he was friends with the King of Hussein King Hussein but he

went fishing with his buddy who was a small optometrist in a small town. And he went fishing with his buddy who was a dock builder in North Carolina. And he went fishing with their wives. And there was one billionaire that came on the trips, but that

that member of the group ultimately decided to give his entire fortune away because of his relationship with Jimmy Carter. So, you know, and all that's outlined in the book. They just love to fish together. And he also in his diplomatic work and his work, his work eradicating diseases and other things.

He was always looking and thinking like, if I'm going over to this place, is there fishing to be had? know? And vice versa, he did use fishing to accomplish diplomatic things. And when he went to fish in Venezuela twice, he spent those fishing trips. He was invited by a businessman who stopped

Cisneros who was arguably one of the which richest people in South America at the time and yet he was in the he represented one half of a pretty bitter battle for the Venezuelan economy and government which the other side of the aisle you had you go shot us and somehow Jimmy Carter was friends with both of them.

Jim Barger Jr (55:33.295)
and develop friendships with both of them, recognize the faults that both of them had, severe faults, recognize faults in their ideology, their respective ideologies. One is trying to collect wealth in one person and establish power through wealth, and the other one is trying to turn around and

turn over all welts to the state in a way that was, you know, not productive in Carter's mind either. So he wanted to bridge those gaps and he went down there on two separate fishing trips to do that. And one of the camp, he went to an Amazonian camp to fish for golden dorado, no for peacock bass. And that same fishing camp

Jason Herbert (56:24.504)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (56:28.488)
that was owned by Cisneros had been in the year or two prior raided by Chavez's people and turned upside down and here he was doing these trips he spent these days with Cisneros fishing and then he would go back and visit with Chavez and do his sort of same type of diplomacy that he did

at Camp David talking to one and one on their ground and going to the other on their ground. And he took his fishing buddies with him.

Jason Herbert (57:07.374)
I got, I have to, I got to tell you the chapters on Argentina and Venezuela in the book had my mouth agape. As I'm, you know, as I'm reading through them, you know, some of these stories and I don't, like I said, I don't want to give away the book, but there is so much stuff there that I had, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. This, he was such, I don't want to say candy operator.

Jim Barger Jr (57:17.198)
Yeah

Jim Barger Jr (57:31.787)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (57:32.748)
Right? Because that kind of lends, it's not the right words here, but his ability to go back and forth between people who are wildly different and befriend both of them.

Jim Barger Jr (57:46.668)
Yes. He had an extremely high emotional intelligence as people define it today. I don't think they talk about it in those terms.

Jason Herbert (57:54.68)
There you go.

Jim Barger Jr (58:04.482)
People trusted him. They trusted him. They trusted his motives and whether they agreed with him or not. And he could connect on a human level with people in a way that made them want to.

to see his vision and see it through. One of the things that talking about is faith.

Before he had any opportunity or thought of becoming a presidential candidate, he did as a lot of people in his faith tradition, Southern Baptist tradition, that he ultimately moved out of Southern Baptist and he went to the Maranatha Baptist Church because of their refusal to accept black members. But he was a missionary.

in the Southern Baptist Church as a grown man. He went to cities in the northeast and this is something that was done and they pair you up with a person. paired with a guy named Eloise Cruz. name was Cruz. He was Cuban American. And Carter was very

timid in his faith at that point in his life and he did not really feel comfortable doing this going door to door and Sharing his faith with strangers, which is an odd thing to do You know a lot of us would question whether it's the right way to do it or not now maybe but you know it he was sharing his face openly and honestly and to anyone who would listen door to door and Cruz was just really good at it and Jimmy Carter said he wasn't and he

Jim Barger Jr (01:00:02.712)
they would bunk together they didn't know each other they were just paired up but he asked Cruz one time what you know what is it about your faith that that makes so easy to share with people and people so receptive to hearing your story and your faith regardless of whether they adopt it or not and Cruz said told him and this went with Carter the rest of his life and you see it in his relationships and it goes back to

me telling you how he locks you with his eyes, he said, have two loves in my heart at all times. One is for God and one is for whoever is right in front of you.

Jim Barger Jr (01:00:51.01)
And Carter took that like, do your very best, and he took it everywhere he went. So if you were the person, if you happened to be the person right in front of him, that's where he directed his love. And I think it worked for him. People who knew Carter loved him back and they were highly devoted to him and saw that same vision. you know, he was peddling peace.

He was peddling something that ultimately I think all humans crave, even the ones who revel in fighting and discord. think we all crave peace. I think that's one of the reasons why people are so fascinated by Jimmy Carter right now is because he embodies that sort of state of peace and desire for peace, mental peace, emotional peace, peace...

with the people immediately around you, but then world peace.

Jason Herbert (01:01:53.996)
You know, Jim, can't help but think about his place in the presidency, this man of peace that Jimmy Carter was, and find that right now he's, there's an ideological opposite for him sitting in the White House.

Jim Barger Jr (01:02:07.618)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (01:02:12.918)
And I've thought more and more recently about like, you know, what presidents would be ideal in a time like this, know, public plans, theater work, so it would be wonderful. But, know, Jimmy Carter, you look at his work in expanding and protecting landscapes, species. All of this also seems to come through as a result of his relationship with the water, with fish, with, you know, his religion as well. And it's like,

Jim Barger Jr (01:02:20.536)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (01:02:41.996)
The work that the man did from 77 to 81, know, continues to pay dividends, it feels like to me.

Jim Barger Jr (01:02:50.136)
Yeah. my gosh. mean, you know, when we see what's happening to the Park Service, it just breaks my heart. I know it would break his heart because nobody, no president, no human being in America, American has done more to preserve lands and to recognize the value of the Park Service than Jimmy Carter.

If he didn't do anything else, and even taking into account his lasting peace treaties, the lands that he protected are going to be his lasting legacy. Those trees are continuing to sequester carbon. Everything that these landscapes are doing to save the earth from what we're doing to it. And at the same time, it's one of largest

It's the biggest moneymaker our country has. know, our country makes $55 billion off of the National Park Service and the budget's like, $3.5 billion? It's crazy what this is as a business, you know, that he has left in addition to just what... He doubled the size of our national parks. He created 39 different...

Jason Herbert (01:04:03.777)
Mm.

Jim Barger Jr (01:04:18.356)
new national parks. He preserved over 50 million acres with the Antiquities Act. The only president that did more than that under the Antiquities Act was Roosevelt and he wrote the act. Creating these monuments. The idea that land can be a monument is our greatest sort of monuments that we can have. And then he preserved 150 million acres with the Alaskan Nans.

Jason Herbert (01:04:41.698)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (01:04:48.392)
land act, as we talked about against his political, better interests. And he, he created our nation's super fund to clean up all of the hazardous wastes that poison the, you know, our marginalized communities. He doubled the size of the Redwood National Forest. Those trees were under

threat because of adjacent logging and the river, the waterways that feed those trees were being polluted and it was going to, you know, the existing park trees were going to be lost. Instead he went ahead and bought, doubled down and doubled down on that park, saved all of those trees and the waterways that feed them. These are things that people don't even realize about cars. They don't talk about them as much as they talk about either.

the Iran hostage crisis or the price of gas or the amazing inflation that they were living through at the time, the interest rates as high as 20 % and things that he was struggling with. And he struggled with the same stuff we're going through right now. mean, Russia was invading Afghanistan then unilaterally and he stood strong against them.

Jason Herbert (01:06:03.021)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (01:06:15.832)
You know, he did a grain embargo that he knew would be his political downfall. I those were his people, the farmers of America. And it was a mistake, and he later admitted it, because it didn't work. Because we didn't foresee the fact that Argentina and some of these other countries would, Ukraine, that Russia would build up its grain ability when the USSR would, when it...

still had Ukraine. So, you know, we think about all those things that plagued his presidency, the energy crisis and everything else, but nobody thinks about the fact or really talks about or highlights the fact that he changed the American landscape more than any other president. And that has outlived him. It will outlive you. It will outlive me. They can fire all the park rangers they want to. That land is still going to be there.

It may be, you know, extraction companies may come in there and try to destroy it. All sorts of bad things may happen to it. But those parks are what make America great. And he made them. So, you know, I'll end with that part with this to say, you know, that house where I visited with him in Plains, it's the same house that he built to raise his children.

It's just a very modest house where all of his furniture was. After they died, Rosalynn and Jimmy left that house, their principal asset to the National Park Service, and it's going to be a national park. Nobody cared more about national parks than Carter did. He had a spiritual tie to Teddy Roosevelt in that way. And he honored Teddy Roosevelt.

by creating Teddy Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. That was one of Carter's parks. Painted Canyon is there because Carter's designated it as a park. yeah, my heart goes out to everybody who works in national parks, but my heart goes out to the American people because our parks are more part of the fabric of who we are than

Jim Barger Jr (01:08:41.612)
the flag itself or any other symbol of America. Mountains, the streams, and even our urban parks where our history is housed. As you're talking about your friend in Beaufort, there's Martin Luther King Junior Park in Atlanta that Jimmy Carter created. All sorts of urban parks all up and down.

Jason Herbert (01:09:00.077)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (01:09:12.161)
the New England and where the original colonies were. That's where we have our history. I you can print as many Chinese flags, American flags in China as you want. You can put people's faces on them, you can do all that stuff. Nothing's more American than our national parks. Jimmy Carter understood that.

Jason Herbert (01:09:35.406)
Yeah, know, Jim, the last thing I keep thinking is you're telling me all this. And, you know, it came to mind as I was reading the book was quite literally Jimmy Carter saved America. Yeah.

Jim Barger Jr (01:09:49.068)
I mean, what is America if it's not our natural treasures? So, he did all that. And you know, it's really, nobody talks about, when they talk about Carter and when they talk about what's happening now, I don't hear people saying like, you know what, ironically or coincidentally or something, all of the things that are being dismantled and are being targeted right now.

Jason Herbert (01:09:50.018)
So.

Jim Barger Jr (01:10:16.654)
They're actually Jimmy Carter initiatives. The Department of Education, he created it. They're trying to dismantle it. The Department of Energy, he created it. They want to dismantle it. The Park Service, he essentially built half of it. One guy in four years built half of the parks that we have. Think about that. mean, even Roosevelt, who's

Preserved more land, not much more than Carter. He had four years in which to do it. And he was living in a time of conservation ethic and, know, the conservatives as Roosevelt was, you know, Republicans recognized that preserving, conserving our land was, was the thing to do. We didn't even have the capacity to do the kind of extraction.

Jason Herbert (01:10:56.578)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (01:11:15.214)
polluting that was going on in the 70s and since then but Carter in four years doubled that single-handedly built that park system. So and others followed him I mean his use of the Antiquities Act George W Bush and Barack Obama they extended that to to our oceanic and created all sorts of monuments.

underwater in these amazing saltwater environments that were protected. These are bipartisan sort of recognition that preserving our natural resources is our, you know, the greatest thing we can do for our current and future generations. So, I could get on soapbox about it.

Jason Herbert (01:12:10.19)
Well, buddy, let me tell you something. Jim, I, I can't thank you enough for, for taking the time. This book is phenomenal. I, like I said, I, I really, truly my heart believe it's time for a critical reappraisal of Jimmy Carter, of Jimmy Carter, the man, Jimmy Carter's America, because I feel like, boy, we could use some of that right now. so.

Jim Barger Jr (01:12:33.954)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (01:12:37.166)
I am going to be continuing to shout to the rest of the world to go out and get a copy of this because I think it's phenomenal. Where are you fishing next?

Jim Barger Jr (01:12:46.434)
Well, we're about to start having the flood tides here right behind my house where the redfish come up into the marsh grass. But yeah, we'll be doing a good bit of that. then we like to, the boys and I like to fish up in North Carolina, Eastern North Carolina for trout. I'll tell you what, if you will indulge me speaking about...

Jason Herbert (01:12:52.315)
the fun times are separate, bitch.

Jason Herbert (01:13:11.042)
Yes,

Jim Barger Jr (01:13:12.356)
Carter this isn't a quote one of my favorite quotes from one of his books it's not there are a lot of his quotes in in our book but I'd like to you know leave leave our listeners with some with Carter's own words because I think they're very prescient this was from one of my favorite books of it you know he wrote 32 different books he was yeah one of the most prolific writers

Jason Herbert (01:13:28.302)
I would love that.

Jason Herbert (01:13:40.534)
I don't know how the man slept.

Jim Barger Jr (01:13:42.02)
I know. And he just won a Grammy posthumously for spoken word and that was like his ninth spoken word Grammy that he had received or something like that. Don't quote me on the numbers, but a lot of Grammys. But the last book that he wrote is called Faith, A Journey For All. He was 95 years old when he wrote that book. I will say to plug our book, the proudest thing I have about it is

He wrote all those books and he wrote his speeches and he spoke a lot of them off the cuff. He was a man of words, you know. We don't have many of those in politics anymore either. His words were incredibly eloquent and he didn't rely on speech writers or ghost writers. He wrote his own words. But the last thing he ever wrote was the foreword to our book. And I take a lot of pride in that.

Jason Herbert (01:14:20.91)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Barger Jr (01:14:41.316)
If nobody ever read it but us, the last thing he ever wrote was a forward and he wrote, it's a short one, he wrote two paragraphs. The first paragraph is about his friend Carlton, but the last paragraph is about his relationship to me. So I'm so proud of the fact that the last thing he ever wrote was about me. Anyway, this is from Faith and Journey to All. I just liked it.

I highly recommend that book. Read it instead of our book. But he said, yeah, keep reading. Read any book you can get your hands on. He said, what are the goals of a person or a denomination or a country? They are remarkably the same. A desire for peace, a need for humility.

Jason Herbert (01:15:10.413)
Please.

Jason Herbert (01:15:14.872)
Read both.

Jim Barger Jr (01:15:36.334)
for examining one's faults and turning away from them, a commitment to human rights in the broadest sense of the words, based on a moral society concerned with the alleviation of suffering because of deprivation or hatred or hunger or physical affliction, and a willingness, even an eagerness, to share one's ideals, one's faith with others.

to translate love in a person into justice.

Jim Barger Jr (01:16:14.616)
We could use a lot more of that right now.

Jason Herbert (01:16:20.366)
I couldn't agree more. Jim, talking to you today about one of my favorite people. That's been an honor, man. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Jim Barger Jr (01:16:27.064)
Well, thanks for having me. I've enjoyed it. I love your podcasts.

Jason Herbert (01:16:32.716)
Thank you very much, All right, everybody. This is Jim Varger Jr. The book is Jimmy Carter, Rivers and Dreams, Rods, Reels and Pea Steals, plus the one that got away. Go get it right now. It's the right thing to do. So we'll catch you guys a bit later.