MY ADVENTURE WITH BILLY CARTER or HOW I WAS ALMOST KILLED BY THE SECRET SERVICE

     I moved from Sherman, Texas to Indiana and Melvin Simon and Associates in the fall of 1972.   In the mid-70’s we were opening new regional malls at an amazing rate.  Each opening had to be bigger and splashier than the last and my employer was gaining a well-earned reputation for doing it better than anyone.

     A colleague, Sandra Brock (now Sandra Cline) came up with the idea of having Ed McMahon as the spokesman for an ad and publicity campaign for a new center in Wichita, Kansas.  It was so successful, the Simons hired Ed for the ongoing openings, corporate advertising and as our corporate spokesman.  We became adept at each new opening to plan events utilizing Ed and other celebrities to generate publicity, to complement the ad campaigns.    

     In the mid-70’s, as Jimmy Carter was securing his nomination and then election for the presidency, his younger brother Billy was in the news every day.  We were opening a new regional mall in Springfield, Illinois, and hosting a hot air balloon race on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy Association.  

     All our celebrities and participants were to be dressed in white tuxedos with tails, white top hats and rising up from the mall parking lot in corporately sponsored balloons racing to a designated landing area.  Ed McMahon was going up in the Budweiser balloon.  Bruce Jenner, who had recently won the decathlon at the Olympics, was there as well.  (Bruce would generate a LOT more publicity today, going up in a balloon.)  We had about a dozen race participants.  I thought it would be a major publicity coup to get Billy Carter in a white tuxedo, top hat and tails going up in the Billy Beer balloon.  We contacted his agent, explained the plan and made a deal.   

     The event came off successfully, we received major national publicity, no one got hurt and Billy was great.   We had about a half a dozen more events over the next year and continued to utilize Ed and Billy…both were professional and easy to work with.

     We planned a big production for the opening of Longview Mall in Longview, Texas.  We had Ed, Billy, Larry Mahan, Joe Frazier, Benji (the dog) and Clayton Moore (The Lone Ranger) on a white horse.    We did another balloon race for MDA… as well as staging an exhibition fight in the middle of the mall featuring Billy Carter and Joe Frazier, as Ed McMahon refereed.  These were major publicity vehicles and it all came off well.   

     Billy invited me to travel with him back to Plains, Georgia, to hang out for a few days after the Longview opening.  Plains was under a serious siege of tourists back in ’78.  This tiny town was filled with folks, chasing down Billy, his friends and family for photos, interviews and a chance to drink a beer in his service station.  His wife and 6 kids were charming.  I had a great time and drank a few Billy Beers.

     Later in the week Billy told me his brother Jimmy was flying into town and we would be playing softball against his team of secret service agents.  Billy fielded a team of media (including Ed Bradley), Hank Aaron, Guich Koock (owner of the entire hamlet of Luckenbach, Texas) and me.  When the game commenced, it was about 150 degrees and I had been drinking Billy Beer (which tasted a lot like 30 weight motor oil) for the better part of the day.  The president’s team consisted of well-conditioned secret service agents who knew how to play softball.   

     Billy put me out in center field and I was sweating like a pig under the blazing southwest Georgia sun.    After a couple of innings, I asked Billy to take me out of the game, parked in the shade and popped open a Billy Beer.  Billy asked me to coach 3rd base when it was our turn to bat.    

     I was still standing there when the president’s team came to bat and Jimmy Carter came to coach 3rd base.  I said I was coaching 3rd base, he pointed out I wasn’t on his team.  I laughed, playfully grabbed him around the neck, his cap fell off and I gave him a “noogie”, while lifting him off the ground.

     Immediately, I was surrounded by men in sunglasses who did not see the humor in my jocularity with the President of the United States.    For the first time in my life, I saw Billy Carter deadly serious.  He ran over from the pitcher’s mound and said quietly, “Buck…let him go.”   I did, the President chuckled, and I removed myself to the bench with a nice secret service man in tow.

     Around a year later, I spoke with Billy and discovered we were going to be in Washington, D.C., at the same time.  He suggested I call him at the White House when I got in and we could meet somewhere for coffee.  When I called, he said Jimmy offered to let me come to the White House and spend the night.    

     The cab let me off, I was let in and Billy took me up to Jimmy’s family quarters.  We walked in and Billy asked, “Jimmy, do you remember Buck?”     

     Jimmy replied, “Oh yeah, I thought we were going to lose Buck”.  
Jimmy and Billy walked me down to my quarters for the evening,  the Queen's bedroom, across from the Lincoln bedroom where Billy was bunking.   Jimmy said goodnight and Billy and I stayed up a while chatting.   Lincoln's bedroom included Honest Abe's bible on a stand, open to the 23rd Psalm.   This was HIS bible...I never wanted to steal anything so bad in my whole life!

The Queen's bedroom was the room Winston Churchill used to occupy when he came to visit FDR during WWII.    When I arose the next morning and was seated on the throne for my morning constitutional, it occurred to me Winston and I started off the day in much the same fashion in the same location.    What a great country, where a clueless knucklehead from Sherman, Texas can ponder the mysteries of life in the same exact spot, doing the same exact thing as Winston Churchill.                   

     Shortly after my White House visit, Billy and his wife Sybil, launched a new ministry, helping those with addiction problems and were  enjoying life.  Billy became sick with cancer and before he died asked me to serve as a pall bearer in his funeral.  It was another hot day in southwest Georgia as Tom T. Hall delivered the eulogy.  He began by pointing out Billy had always hated ties, didn’t wear one now in his casket and his family asked all the men to remove theirs.  Everyone did, including Jimmy and his secret service detail.  

     As we gathered later, we were all able to smile over the events from those days a decade earlier.  Jimmy remarked, "Nice to see you again, I thought we were going to lose you that day in the softball game, down at our ball field here in Plains."     One of the Secret Service crew chimed in with, "Yes, we all thought it was touch and go.   It would have put a damper on the day to gun down a friend of the family, simply because he was full of beer and playing too rough with the President."     I chuckled uneasily, smiled and assured the assembled group, I had learned my lesson.   It would not happen again!