Dec. 30, 2024
by Mark Tiler Richmond, Politics & Law Correspondent
News of former President Jimmy Carter’s death reverberated throughout the Realm of Bricklyn, bringing expressions of sorrow and loving memories.
Federal Council President Hilma Plater-Zybrick expressed the widely shared sentiment that “Jimmy Carter was guided by a moral vision of the world and what it could become. We also recall with gratitude that it was President Carter who helped inspire the immigration of thousands of Bricklynites to Vermont between 1977 and 1981 when the Tripartite Realm of Bricklyn was formally established.”
Some of today’s “old timers” met at the Bricklyn Tavern and remembered their joy as young people at hearing of Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976.
As patron Sarah Tiler Stephenson told us, “Carter offered a vision of a tolerant, welcoming America, where even LEGO peoples could feel at home.”
Peter Brickhammer, owner of the Bricklyn Tavern, told us that he was even more impressed by the many actions Carter took after leaving office: “It was his moral vision that never left. He didn’t sit and stew about only serving one term, or about getting revenge on his enemies. Instead, Jimmy Carter devoted his time and energy to making our world a better place for all people.”
As Brickhammer added, “Of course, Jimmy Carter, the former peanut farmer, also helped launch the craft beer industry, a boon to local taverns like ours!. So we raise our mugs in gratitude, munch on some peanuts, and smile in his memory.”
A delegation of Bricklynites will attend the memorial services in Washington, DC. The services will also be televised on News Channel 5.
Donations in Jimmy Carter’s memory can be made to the Carter Center’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Enduring Hope Fund.
An aside from Wayne Senville, Outland Liaison to Bricklyn:
Just today during the short daily evening service I happened to read on a page of The Rabbinical Assembly’s Siddur Lev Shalem [prayer book] a short composition by the late Rabbi Jules Harlow, titled “The Dream of a New Day.” It made me reflect again on Jimmy Carter. I think he would have shared in this Dream of a New Day.
Harlow wrote, in part:
“Creator of peace, compassionate God,
guide us to a covenant of peace
with all of Your creatures, birds and beasts
as well as all humanity
reflecting Your image of compassion and peace.
Give us strength
to help sustain Your promised
covenant abolishing blind strife
and bloody warfare, so
that they will no longer devastate
the earth, so that discord
will no longer tear us asunder.
Then all that is savage and
brutal will vanish,
and we shall fear evil no more. …
— From Siddur Lev Shalem (p. 268).
We welcome Letters to the Editor. Please email to: bricklynvt@gmail.com
To the Editor: Dear Walt — So glad you had a tribute to Jimmy Carter. I was unaware of the number of causes he and his wife undertook after he left the White House, mostly in the area of global health. They supported and funded many initiatives that saved many lives. I found Rabbi’s Harlow’s words to be right on the money. — Pat D., Vermont
