An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood

The chapter opens with a photo of Main Street in Plains, Georgia in 1905. It is a collection of well-worn wooden buildings, porches propped up on posts, on an unpaved street. Carter describes Plains’ flat, rich land and explains that nearby Archery transforms from plains to hills and poorer soil. Archery no longer exists, but it is where Carter lived from the age of four until he left for college and the Navy in 1941.

Plains remains because its citizens are committed to it and its farms are productive. Archery, in contrast, was “never quite a real town” (14) aside from its Seaboard Airline Railroad workers and a still-vibrant African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. The Carter farm was the last of the “good” land to the east of Archery. He recalls how close he felt to the soil, composed of sand, loam, and red clay, beneath his bare feet. Particles made its way into the family’s clapboard house, located on a dirt road called US Route 280.

Locals did not drive over the road but walked or rode in mule-drawn wagons. The railroad ran on the other side of the road. Someone was always outside, watching the passing scene. The Carters had a telephone, which was rare.