Just over a week ago, Rozie and I were driving thru Eau Claire to find our dinner stop on our way to a family gathering. Passing by the parking ramp on Farwell St. at Grand Avenue, I pointed to the space under the ramp behind the convention center and said, “That’s where I shook hands with Jimmy Carter.”

It was October 1976, during the general election campaign, and he was there to address a state convention of the AFL-CIO in the newly built convention center. I was waiting at a rope line outside, awaiting his emergence to greet the waiting crowd. As he stepped out, a set of loudspeakers began playing an instrumental version of “Happy Days Are Here Again,” and he started walking down the line grabbing outstretched hands.

One of those hands was mine, and I also used that hand to snap a picture with my cheap-ass camera. All I got was a fuzzy shot of Carter shaking hands as Governor Patrick Lucey looked on.* I have no idea whatever happened to that image.

It was the only time I ever shook hands with a president (albeit a future president).

* Lucey had made a request to his minders that whenever he went to the Eau Claire area, he wanted his State Patrol driver to be Ray King… my father.