Billy Carter Buries Hatchet and Heads Back to Plains

Billy Carter, who once vowed never to return to Plains, saying that having a brother as President made it tough just to walk down the street in his hometown, climbed into the family car today and headed back to Plains.

Carter, 49, had lived in Waycross four years and had vowed never to return to Plains, about 150 miles west. But he went into the mobile home business for himself in January, and he said that has made him more flexible.

“The movers are here now to pick up our things,” Carter’s wife, Sybil, said. “We’re real excited to be moving back to Plains--our family’s there and that’s where we want to live.”

Billy Carter’s feelings for Plains have not always been cordial. From the time Jimmy Carter began campaigning for President, Billy and his good-old-boy life style were scrutinized.

“Plains has gone straight to hell,” Billy said after his brother moved to the White House.

“Used to be at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning you could walk out onto Main Street and take a leak and nobody would see you,” he said then. “Last Sunday there must have been 2,000 damned tourists here.

“I couldn’t stand it--I went off to the bootlegger, bought me a fifth, drove around the rest of the day and got good and drunk.”

The tourist traffic in Plains has died down, and Carter’s drinking habits are no longer a problem--he entered an alcohol treatment program in Long Beach, Calif., seven years ago and says he has not touched a drop since.