Ever notice when reflecting on past events those feelings you had during the occasion can be crystal clear, yet you can’t pinpoint the date?

“That was 1979, wasn’t it?” former Mayor Joseph Walsh said when asked if he remembered when President Jimmy Carter arrived at Green Airport on a visit to Rhode Island. “It had to be the fall,” Walsh recalled, “because we were all outside.” Walsh was right. Carter visited Rhode Island for less than a day in the fall of 1979.

I remember it as being warm, and I’m not just referring to the weather. There was a huge welcoming party estimated at 2,000 largely made up of Warwick students and Boy and Girl Scout troops. Schoolkids were bused in so they could see the president and Air Force One. The Toll Gate High School band, surely with Principal Robert Shapiro orchestrating the event, performed “Hail to the Chief” when Carter stepped into view to descend the stairs to the tarmac.

Walsh was in the lineup of welcoming dignitaries. He doesn’t remember what he said to the president, other than, “It was small talk. It wasn’t foreign policy.” I laughed. Walsh has a way of offering a fresh view of things.  But Walsh felt Carter’s radiant character. “He was self-effacing, down to earth, the same with everybody,” he said.

Times were different then. There wasn’t an overbearing presence of security. Carter strolled over to the chain-link fence where people waited excitedly to greet him. The press followed, respectfully giving him space. He didn’t deliver any remarks or give interviews at the airport. He encountered a far less friendly audience in Providence, where demonstrators protested the cost of gasoline and voiced concerns over the availability of home heating oil. The Beacon was not among the news media that got to ask questions, but that didn’t mean we were excluded. I’ll get to that in a bit.

Walsh reflected on Carter’s term in office, mentioning his “big successes and losses.” On the top of successes was the peace agreement brokered between Israel and Egypt. The losses were inflation, the scarcity of gasoline and the interminable lines at service stations, and the failed attempt to rescue diplomatic hostages held by Iranian students and that prolonged ordeal.

What Walsh remembers are Carter’s qualities: his honesty, integrity and how he treated people. Certainly that wasn’t the takeaway from a brief encounter at the airport but what he saw and felt on that fall day reinforced what he’d heard about Carter.

Thinking of the impact of the Carter administration on the city, Walsh pointed to the Section 8 Housing program under which developers built 1,000 units of Warwick Section 8 housing, including Sparrows Point and Hardig Brook Village.

I don’t recall the circumstances of how it came to be, but I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Rosalynn Carter during their visit at the Colonial Hilton in Cranston, where they stayed briefly. She was gracious. I didn’t feel rushed and actually as if I was in her home, which, of course was not the case. She talked a lot about Jimmy and there was no mistaking their strong relationship. There was no hidden agenda. I didn’t get the feeling she was being nice because she felt she had to be nice. This was genuine and the local newspaper reporter was getting the same treatment as the TV network star.

I compared notes with Walsh when we talked last Tuesday.

He too had met and talked with Rosalynn. “She was a mirror of him,” he said. “What you see is what you get.”

Walsh is right. I can’t point to single incident that reinforces that feeling. Nonetheless, it’s clear as day in reading about Jimmy Carter’s presidency I’m not alone.