Replies

This song reminds me of Jimmy Carter and the 1976 presidential election. It was my first year in high school and I had an early morning paper route (back when boys were allowed to deliver newspapers) delivering the Boston Herald-American, as it was called at the time.

So my routine was to get up at 5 in the morning and wait for my papers to drop on my front porch so I could take them inside to fold them. Before leaving the house, I'd always read one of them. So on the morning after the election, I learned for the first time that Jimmy Carter was going to be our next president as I went to bed before the results were known.

Being just a naive 14-year-old, I was pretty happy that the peanut farmer from Georgia pulled it out over that old fart Jerry Ford. I did have high hopes for a Jimmy Carter presidency at the time.

Well I delivered my papers with a transistor radio in my sack and so "If You Leave Me Now" was one of the songs I remember playing that morning. So ever since, for better or worse, hearing that song reminds me of Jimmy Carter.