A hometown seat for Jimmy Carter’s improbable rise. Plus, cocaine eels; stolen masterpieces; healthy older brains; swimming cougars
|  | Saturday, February 25, 2023 | | | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPHS BY JODI COBB
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By Jodi Cobb
In the summer of 1976 I was reluctantly paddling the Suwanee River for a National Geographic story, one of my first—and one I was uniquely unqualified for. I was a journalist, not an adventurer, at heart.
In the nearby Georgia town of Plains, Jimmy Carter was running his improbable presidential campaign. I had to go have a look. I found a place both charming and complicated, much like Carter himself. This tiny town had shaped the peanut farmer-turned-politician, and Plains was his touchstone throughout his life. I found the things that defined him—faith, humility, caring—the things he in turn offered to the world. The town was giddy with the success of their hometown son (pictured above; Carter in an impromptu baseball game in August 1976; below, a flood of journalists in Plains, a mule ride). | | | |
| Serious things were happening behind closed doors, but all around him was joy and fun. Carter was surrounded by love. Jubilant friends and supporters—380 of them—boarded a chartered Amtrak train (below), dubbed the “Peanut Special,” and partied all the way to Carter’s inauguration in Washington DC. It was an unforgettable ride.
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| Below, the new president and his family walk Pennsylvania Avenue from his swearing-in at the Capitol to the White House, braving bitter cold weather.
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| | Above, a smiling Jodi Cobb, one of Nat Geo’s first women staff photographers, bundled up to work on Carter’s inauguration day. | | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY JR, REDUX
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 | PHOTOGRAPH BY RICHARD BARNES
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Waiting for their marbles: For nearly two centuries, Greece has wanted Britain to return the pieces of the stunning Elgin Marbles taken by London. The hypermodern Acropolis Museum (above), opened in 2009 within sight of the Parthenon, answered British claims that Greece lacked a museum fit for the famed Elgin Marbles. More and more museums are returning looted treasures to their homelands, Nat Geo reports.
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 | PHOTOGRAPH BY RIVER CLAURE
| | ‘All grownups were children ... but few of them remember it': That’s a key line from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s enduring Le Petit Prince. But what if this children’s classic—and its spirit of joy and discovery—were transported from the Sahara to the Andes? In this reimagining by photographer and Nat Geo Explorer River Claure, the blond prince is instead a dark-haired Andean child, forging his identity in the world, Nat Geo reports.
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 | PHOTOGRAPH BY DOMINIKA DYKA
| | Pride in Ukraine: Even before Vladimir Putin’s disastrous and deadly Kremlin invasion a year ago, Ukraine—once robbed of its grain by Lenin and starved to death by Stalin—had a resurgence in traditional culture. That included colorful flower crowns (above, worn by musicians Daga Gregorowicz and Dana Vynnytska). Often used in weddings, these charming headdresses represent another element in this defiant, courageous nation: patriotism, writes Nat Geo’s Eve Conant.
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Today’s soundtrack: Fotos y recuerdos, Selena; and Back on the Chain Gang, The Pretenders. Here’s the backstory.
This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard and Jen Tse. Amanda Williams-Bryant, Alisher Egamov, Rita Spinks, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week. Have an idea? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Thanks for reading! | | | |
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