When I was in the eighth grade, I failed. I brought home at Christmas an F in Latin. I didn't see any reason to learn Latin. Nobody I knew spoke it very much. My father was not pleased. The next morning, he came into my room and said, We were on Christmas vacation. He said, You have your Latin book? I said, Yes. He said, Let me have it. He went to work at Carter's Warehouse. When he came home that night, we spent an hour and a half him teaching me Latin that he had learned from my book that day. He did that every day of Christmas vacation. The first day of the school year, after Christmas, I went to my teacher and ask her if she'd let me take the final over again that she had given us, the midterm test. And she said, yes. So after school that day, I took that test and I made 100. I owed it to my father, who spent that time with me. But he was an amazing man, and he was held up and propped up and soothed by an amazing woman. And the two of them together changed the world.
It was an amazing thing to watch from so close and to be able to be involved in. I thank you for your service.
President Jimmy Carter's son Chip shares a touching moment from his childhood while eulogizing his late father during a Georgia ...