The death of Jody Powell at the young age of 65—here’s a Times memorial piece I like—ensures that he will remain a whiz kid, at least in my memory. And it causes me to think again of September, 1973, when I was a very young community arts council executive running his first local festival in the Southern Pines, NC town park.

A group of politicos, stumping for Bill Hefner, running then for his first term in the U. S. Congress, came to see us. It was a fine, fall day. The park was full of folks. The Bluegrass Tar Heels had already warmed up the afternoon. Hefner’s gospel group fit right in; they had somehow missed their audience and found ours. During the singing I surveyed the park and waxed expansive about it all. At one point I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to find a handshake and a big grin on the face of a sandy-haired fellow who introduced himself saying, “Hi! I’m Jimmy Carter. I’m the Governor of Georgia.” I don’t remember what we talked about, but I’ve loved him ever since, admired him and voted for him twice for president.

He’s in the news today, pointing out the obvious—that much of the most vocal opposition to President Obama is racist. And he’s been slandered all over the place. Perhaps the worst attack is in today’s National Review Online. Carter, these sagacious editors say, is guilty of “playing the race card.” His “accusations” are “both banal and cynical” and “right on cue.” Of course, Mr. Carter made no accusations; he responded to questions, stating a view that’s held by many supporters of the present administration. But in an incendiary political atmosphere being stoked by the racist cant of Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Rush Limbaugh, any mention of race counts as an explosive device. This, I suspect, is why Ben Smith termed Carter’s comments bad politics.

On another note, the Associated Press is reporting tonight that Mary Travers is dead, having lost the fight she has waged with leukemia for the past several years. My beloved and I heard one of the last Peter, Paul and Mary concerts here, at the Fox Theater, a few years back, a concert we attended with a politically mixed group of friends who loved that music.

Obits are already associating Travers with the liberal causes she and her partners, Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow, espoused; but Peter, Paul and Mary belong to American history as Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, indeed the whole folk music movement do. “Their sound is gone out into all lands,” as the scripture says.

Here’s one of my favorite Peter, Paul and Mary Songs, apolitical perhaps, written by Gordon Lightfoot.