The passing of Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States, prompted me to scan the titles on my bookcase and find my copy of “An Hour Before Daylight — Memories of a Rural Boyhood.” This is a book rich in memories of another time and place, and one that I have enjoyed returning to now and then over the years.

Published by Simon and Schuster in 2001, I bought the book soon after it was published. While I was seldom voting Democratic by that time, Carter had been the first president I ever voted for. Even with my little vote, he lost in 1980. (Grain embargo: Let’s not talk about that.) More than politics, I was drawn to the book for Carter’s recollections of farm life in the early 20th century.

Looking back, I’m sure I was also drawn to the book by the fact that both Carter and my dad were born in 1924. They were both born in hospitals, which was not always common at that time. Dad was the only one of his siblings not born at home, and Carter was actually the first president to be born in a hospital.

Both men grew up on working farms, albeit very different farms, both in practice and geography. And yet, they experienced similar things; trotting to the outhouse, hitching work horses to farm implements, and rejoicing as mechanization came to farms.

In “An Hour Before Daylight,” we learn what it was like growing up as a child of the Great Depression, growing up in the South, living on dirt roads, knowing what physical work is really all about. As a boy, Carter spent plenty of time in bib overalls and bare feet. It was in his rural boyhood where he developed a connection to the land.

Carter writes with a conversational lilt to his words. I can almost hear his kindly, almost fatherly voice speaking directly to me as I read.

“My most persistent impression as a farm boy was of the earth,” Carter wrote. “There was a closeness, almost an immersion in the sand, loam, and red clay that seemed natural and constant.”

This is a book filled with joy and love for the world Carter grew up in, and yet it is also very honest about the shortcomings, particularly in the South where memories of the Civil War were still fresh in the 1920s and ’30s.

Our core values are normally formed in childhood, and Carter links much of his own character in life to the people and places of his childhood. This includes the grown white men who were strict segregationists, and the “little black boys” who were his playmates as a child in the South. In rural Hamilton County in the 1920s, I’m pretty sure there were no little black children to have as playmates. Carter has great memories of his little playmates, and it is a pleasure to read and know that, regardless of time and place, kids are just kids.

In this book, we learn that Carter’s great-great-grandfather was a slave owner and in his will left 43 slaves to his descendants. The year was 1864, and those people would not be slaves much longer. But the memory of the war clearly colored the world in which Carter grew up.

“I grew up in one of the families whose people could not forget that we had been conquered, while most of our neighbors were black people whose grandparents had been liberated in the same conflict,” Carter explains.

Funny, U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant did his best to make sure Confederate General Robert E. Lee did not leave Appomattox feeling “conquered.” Acting on the “malice toward none” guidance of President Lincoln, Grant did not imprison Lee, but allowed him to leave the surrender meeting of the Civil War with dignity, his sword at his side.

Carter’s description, however, gives us a unique glimpse into the feelings and attitudes of the Deep South in the years long before Brown V. Board of Education, or a young black minister with a dream. Looking back, Carter’s mother, “Miss Lillian” as the world came to know her, always wanted people to judge the people of those times, with the times they lived in. On that, I do agree with Miss Lillian. Our own age has sins enough of its own that we don’t need to judge the past more than is due.

But do not expect a history lesson in this book. It is a memoir of a man who could clearly look back and see both the good and the bad, and allow it to inform his choices for the future, the way he chose to live his life. Regardless of one’s politics, I hope that we can all agree that Carter lived a good life, one dedicated to lifting up his fellow human beings.

He was one of the most prolific writers among the presidents, and I look forward this spring to exploring some of his other books, particularly on faith and values. Carter never sought to impose his faith on others, but he did offer testimony as to the value of faith, of common core beliefs as tools that help create a society in which all can live in peace and freedom.

Rest in peace, Mr. President — and thank you for living your life as a gentleman. I didn’t always agree with you (grain embargo), but you always had my respect.

Take the Carter Challenge

By now, the faCt that President Carter taught Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, for 40 years is both well-known and legendary. According to the church’s website, Carter ended every lesson with the same challenge: to do something good for another person. Bake a cake and take it to a neighbor, visit a friend in the nursing home.

My favorite idea is to skip the texting, and call an old friend. After all, unlike the days of Carter’s childhood, we don’t have to worry about party lines or long-distance charges.