Submitted by Darryl Daniels
It didn’t take long after arriving at the Carter Protective Division in April 1981, that riding bicycles was going to be a common activity. We often rode them in Plains, GA and we even begged for some bikes during a trip in China to go for a ride.
One of the best bike stories happened in Plains during my first year on the detail. One morning I was occupying Post One. Post One was the first guard shack you came to after leaving the Command Post (CP) and walking down to the Carter Residence. We were working the Day Shift (7am – 3pm). The phone rang and the Shift Leader told me, “Lock up and come up and grab a bike. Deacon is going to ride his bike out to the Pond House and have breakfast with Ms. Lillian.”
I “dropped” the post and walked up to the CP and looked over the 2 old used bikes we had. Both had been donated to the Service from the neighbors. Both were in poor condition and barely ran.
I grabbed the best one and guided it out to the main gate to await President Carter. Soon, he came walking up the drive toward the main gate pushing a brand new 18-speed mountain bike someone had just shipped to him. I, along with the Shift Leader began admiring it. It was a beauty. The President then turns to me and says, “Darryl, this isn’t going to be a race to the Pond House. I just want to see what this bike can do.” I started laughing and told him he was going to leave me in the dust.
I was right. As soon as we left the gate Deacon kicked that new bike into gear and he was gone. I was pedaling the contraption I was on as hard as I could but, every minute or so I would look up and see Deacon becoming a speck on the horizon.
There was a railroad crossing on the road to the Pond House. As soon as we crossed it the Suburban, with the shift agents, pulled up beside me. Roger Rodak was driving and Ed Sheehan was in the front passenger seat. Rodak yelled “grab onto the truck”. I asked why. He said “We’re going to get you caught up to Deacon”. At first, I didn’t want to, but I took one more look at President Carter and he was already half way to the Pond House.
I grabbed onto the Suburban, Roger got me going about 35 MPH. I let go and he slowed down. I was flying. I coasted up beside Deacon like Pee Wee Herman on a 1950’s Huffy bicycle. President Carter looked over and saw me just coasting along beside him. His eyes got huge. I would have given $1,000 for a picture of the look on his face at that moment.
I started laughing to myself and got tears in my eyes and started having trouble seeing the road, so I slowed down. Of Course, Roger and Ed pulled up and asked what had happened and I told them about the look on Deacon’s face and we all had a good laugh. Of course, by now I’ve fallen behind again. Roger says grab on again and we’ll get you caught up before he gets to the Pond House.
I said no, that Deacon would figure it out and get mad. Roger and Ed both said, “You haven’t got a hair on your butt if you don’t.” I grabbed on and away we went. I let go again but, this time I didn’t have the nerve to just coast up beside him, I put the pedals to the medal and kept going. I flew past him like he was standing still. But when I got to the entrance for the Pond House, I kept right on going. I didn’t want to turn into the driveway and be chastised by him. I waited until he had dismounted his bike and gone inside for breakfast before I turned around and came back to the Pond House.
Once Deacon was inside for a few minutes, I told Roger, “You need to ride back on the bike with the President and let me drive the Suburban. Roger said, “Why?”. I told him that Deacon was going to be mad at me and besides, I was tired. The Suburban was parked off to the side of the house in the woods where it wasn’t immediately visible to the President when he came out of the Pond House to return home.
When Deacon finished his breakfast with Ms. Lillian he came out and found Roger standing there holding our bike. Carter asked Roger, “Where’s Darryl? I thought he would be here to lead me back to the residence?” Roger answered, “No sir, he’s driving the Suburban. You wore him out on the ride over here.”
A month went by and President Carter never said a word about that morning bike ride to the Pond House. But he was very competitive by spirit and I knew it would linger in the back of his mind for a while and when the opportunity arose, that morning bike ride to the Pond House would be revisited.
Later, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, I was the senior agent on duty and the shift whip. The direct phone line from Deacon’s house rang. I was in the CP and picked it up. The President said “Rosie and I are going for a bike ride.” I answered him, “Yes sir. We’ll be ready”.
I called the agent on Post One to drop the post and grab a bike. It was the usual drill, one agent with a bike following Deacon and Mrs. Carter on their bikes at a top speed of 5MPH, while the shift whip and a driver follow everyone in a Suburban. The weather was nice, a warm fall day, sunny and pleasant.
We headed out to the back roads of Plains for a leisurely ride. Bob, the agent on the bike pulls up next to the Suburban and grabs onto it. He’s actually leaned into the driver’s window. I’m in the right front seat and another shift agent was driving. The three of us are talking about football when all of a sudden Bob disappears from the truck window. One second, he was leaning in the driver’s window and the next second he was gone. Then the Suburban runs over something – BUMP, BUMP!
My first thought was, oh my God, we’ve killed Bob. My second thought was, I’m going to be writing reports about this for the rest of my career. We stopped the truck immediately; I jumped out and ran around to the driver’s side. The Carters heard the commotion and turned around to ride back to us. Bob is lying in the road, on the double yellow line, not moving. Me and the other agent run up to him thinking he was dead or severely injured.
Bob opened his eyes, saw the distraught looks on our faces and burst out laughing. He said, “I knew you guys would think I was dead.” He couldn’t stop laughing. Finally, after we were sure he wasn’t injured, we started laughing too.
We asked him repeatedly if he was all right and he said he was fine. The Carters arrived and we all asked him what happened? He told the Carter’s he was holding onto the Suburban when all of a sudden, the bike started to slide under the truck. He said as soon as the bike started to slide, he jumped off and rolled away from the vehicle.
Then we all turned and looked at the Secret Service bike. It was bent in two, U-shaped; all that was left of it was a bent-up piece of junk. Needless to say, the Secret Service was now down to one piece of crap for a bike.
We loaded Bob’s bike into the rear of the Suburban. The Carter’s said they had ridden enough and asked if we could put their bikes in too and we would all ride back to the residence in the truck together.
On the ride back to the residence everyone kept asking Bob if he was okay and he assured all he was fine. President Carter was sitting behind me. Everything got very quiet in the truck. Finally, Carter said, “Darryl, about a month ago when we rode out to the Pond House that morning and you passed me on that old bike, you were hanging onto the Suburban weren’t you?”
Everyone was looking at me waiting for my answer, you could have heard a pin drop. I could feel my face turning beet red. I turned around in the seat and looked the President in the eye and said, “Mr. President, I’m going to have to plead the 5th Amendment on that.”
Carter started pounding the back of my seat and saying, “I knew it, I knew it. I knew there was no way you could beat me on that old bike.” It just took him a while to figure it out. The Former President and I always got along well and we continued on good terms.