BOUND FOR FUN-AND GLORY

Turner's hardware store had sold out its 50 pairs of long Johns. In nearby Americus, almost all the long dresses at Mailory 's had been snatched up. Jimmy Carter's neighbors from Plains and environs were ready for the trip to Washington. Along for the ride was TIME Correspondent George Taber. His report:

"Behave yourself now," Jimmy Carter admonished his high school classmate Virginia Williams in front of the white clapboard railroad depot. "And if you get in trouble, don't call me." Then Virginia, her husband Frank and 380 other Plains folk boarded the 18 red-blue-and-silver cars of the Peanut Special--an Amtrak train leased for fun and bound for glory. At exactly 1 p.m., as Jimmy stood in the windy 10DEG F. weather, waving a gloved hand and flashing the famous teeth, the Peanut Special began to pull away from Plains--the first passenger train to have made a stop there in 20 years or so.

The travel agent for the Inaugural odyssey was Maxine Reese, who, while managing the Carter campaign headquarters in the Plains rail depot last June, had started arranging the bash. "Jimmy told me he was going to win, so I figured we had to hire a train to take Plains to Washington," said Maxine. Now she had the train--and an $85,000 bill from Amtrak. As she settled into her seat, the ample Maxine also had a bottle of Taittinger champagne, a "pair of thermal underwear that would stretch around a live oak tree," and a new lowcut, black Inaugural dress. "We're going to tear up Pennsylvania Avenue," she chirped.

The folks in the $160 coach seats and the $260 sleepers, however, were not about to wait until they reached Washington to begin celebrating. As the Peanut Special rolled toward Savannah past naked cotton-and cornfields and snow-crowned pine and pecan groves, they partied with a vengeance--almost as if they were reversing General William Tecumseh Sherman's earlier trek across the South. Said Sam Simpson, a grocer from Barnesville, Ga., bedecked with a peanut lei and two peanut bracelets: "My granddaddy told me that hell would freeze over before we'd have a Southerner as President. Well, I just heard that Washington is frozen." Joseph Wiley Reid, who described himself as a "cousin of Jimmy way back," carried a sign reading, FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST! GOD ALMIGHTY, THE WHITE PEOPLE AND THE COLORED PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH ARE FREE AT LAST. JAN. 20, 1977 AT 12:01. At the bar car's piano, a singer named Carmelita hammered out endless repetitions of Dixie.

Before the Peanut Special had gone very far, out came Dramamine tablets and hip flasks to help smooth the ride. In one of the coach cars, Patsy Wells drawled to her friend Linda Moon, "Those Yankees will never believe simple names like ours. So for the Inauguration I'm going to be Dixie Belle Wells and you can be Magnolia Moon." Sam and Annie Taylor, a guitar-pickin' duo from Somerville, Ala., wandered from car to car as the train roared north toward Jimmy's new home. Sam had bought his first dark blue suit for the Inaugural Ball, and was singing his new composition, The Jimmy Carter Special ("When I was a young'un I heard Jimmy say,/ 'Sure as there's peanut butter I'll be President some day.")

And then there were the peanuts.

Blue-eyed Peanut Princess Karen Bell from Adel, Ga., was aboard giving out peanut leis and chatting away about peanut hamburgers and peanut hot dogs. In all, the 382 celebrators ate 275 Ibs. of roasted peanuts as they downed Tom Collinses or bourbon. Culinary chauvinism, however, was not limited to peanuts. As the train clickety-clacked through the Carolinas, the travelers dined on peanut soup, Georgia ham and Georgia peach ice cream.

No conductor was courageous enough to enforce the recommended 10 p.m. lights-out, and as the train headed into Virginia, Sam and Annie continued to pluck through their repertoire-- Wabash Cannonball, The Jimmy Carter Special and Amazing Grace. The bar's piano, meanwhile, beat out Dixie until the peanuts were gone, and around 1 a.m., the citizens of Plains finally retreated to sleep.

Just as dawn broke over the snow-covered capital on Thursday, the Peanut Special crept into Washington. The Georgians, red-eyed from fatigue but alert with nervous excitement, suddenly fell quiet. The piano sat silent, and the utterances over coffee were now in hushed but confident tones.

Whatever confidence they had about dealing with the strange city, however, was soon tested when they arrived at their hotel. A breakdown of the heating system had forced it to close 100 rooms, and even then many of the ones assigned to the Georgians were heatless. Two girls flew back to Georgia, while others searched for friends in heated hotels. Those staying had to sleep up to four to a room in what Plains' Maurice Smith angrily called the "damn dump." Still, the incredible snafu could not quite ruin the joyous occasion.

On Friday, some 2,000 Georgians filed into the White House, dressed comfortably, as Jimmy had suggested, in pantsuits and turtlenecks. As they looked around the public rooms and posed for Instamatic pictures, they seemed nervous. When Plains natives reached Jimmy and Rosalynn, they invariably received a hug from each and sometimes one from Miss Lillian, who had formed her own reception line. Virginia Williams apologized for calling her old classmate Jimmy instead of Mr. President. "Oh, that's all right," replied Carter. Explained Roy Wise: "It'll be hard for us to ever call him Mr. President. Hell always be just Jimmy." Or as Helen Meek said, "The reception shows that Jimmy will always remain part of us--and part of Plains."

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