(CAPITOL CITY NOW) – When your father was Illinois Democratic Party icon Paul Simon (pictured), you’ve got plenty of stories. Simon was a Congressman during the Jimmy Carter presidency, and former Illinois Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon was a teenager then.
Her only personal encounter with Carter was during a party on the White House lawn, complete with food and a volleyball net, as fun as the parties she was used to attending at home in southern Illinois. A Washington Post reporter asked her what she thought of it all, and she said it reminded her of the parties her parents hosted – “which embarrassed my parents terribly.”
But her bow-tied father felt America could do better in 1980, and he backed then-U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) – and Paul Simon spurned a Camp David invitation to cement both the endorsement and his reputation as, quoting Sheila Simon, “a very open liberal.”
That decision did not stop the Simons and the Carters from being friends, though, as the four went together on an election-monitoring trip to Liberia after Carter left office. “Mom and Dad were so amazed at the long lines in which people stood to vote,” said Sheila Simon. “It was so important for them to be able to exercise that right.”
And a story that epitomizes Carter’s values brings a smile: Carter returned a letter Paul Simon wrote to him with his response on the back, “to not waste paper.”
Sheila Simon is now a law professor at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
Jimmy Carter, the 39th President, passed Sunday at 100.
