Carter comes to town, Bibles in tow

"Give me love," said former President Jimmy Carter, opening his arms to hug Sen. Al Franken.

The former First Couple were the main attraction at one of their "Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project 2010" sites Wednesday for the Minneapolis leg of their national house-building calling on behalf of Habitat for Humanity.

Franken was the first elected official at the Hawthorne EcoVillage neighborhood work site, where the Carters participated in building affordable houses. Mayor R.T. Rybak, wearing a T-shirt despite the cool morning, was also there when I was. A staffer was walking around carrying a stack of books I thought might be copies of Carter's latest book, a memoir titled "White House Diary," but how wrong I was. These were Bibles, which I gather Carter gives to each new homeowner when he shows up to work for this charity he has supported in words and sweat equity for 26 years.

Melo Lawson, who along with her four children will move into one of the houses, was thrilled with the present. She put her three previously rejected applications to Habitat in her Bible. There was something else she was enthused about related to Carter's gift of a Bible, but we had a language barrier, as her English is accented by her native home, Togo.

Jimmy Carter still sweetly grabs Rosalynn's hand every chance he gets. However, for one ride on a golf cart, as you can see at startribune.com/video, instead of holding hands, they were holding onto the hand railing.

Together again

It was 1977 all over again Tuesday at Spoonriver, even though this restaurant did not exist during the Carter administration.

The Carters, plus former Vice President Walter Mondale and his wife, Joan, had a reunion dinner at the tony restaurant next to the Guthrie.

Jimmy had the steak and Rosalynn had the walleye. "We had a special menu for them," said Timothy Kane, who owns the restaurant along with his wife, chef Brenda Langton. "We had a lovely evening. They were very gracious. We were honored to be able to have them as guests."

A photo of Mondale and Carter with Kane and Langton and their daughter, Celina Kane, 19, has been posted on Spoonriver's Facebook page.

The former prez "was very gracious and shook hands with everyone in the restaurant," e-mailed Mari Quenemoen. "It's not every day you see a former president and vice president while having cocktails in Minneapolis on a Tuesday night."

Look out for famous faces

If Cameron Diaz really is in A Rod's hotel room, would it be too much to ask her to take Charlize Theron to the baseball games?

A tipster tells me Diaz, who's dating A Rod, is in Minneapolis and refusing to take pictures or sign autographs (although at least one website says she's in LA filming a movie). She sounds about as friendly as A Rod's blonde du jour from last year, Kate Hudson, who eventually warmed up. Theron is supposed to be in the metro shooting movie scenes, although I've had no reports of sightings. But when I'm in Jimmy John's or walking down the street, people keep asking me, "Where's Charlize?" There should've been proof of Diaz's presence at Wednesday night's Yankees-Twins postseason game.

Randemonium

Randy Moss' return tour of duty at Winter Park gives him an opportunity to make good on an old promise.

In September 2002, when we media jackals were chasing Moss from the Hennepin County jail after one of his infractions (his run-in with a traffic officer), a parking garage attendant, Willie Adams, helped Randy elude us.

"He said he'd give me a couple of tickets," said Adams, who always watched out for me when I was in that parking garage. At that time, he said, "I'm going to wait until this all dies down" before asking Moss to make good.

Every time I saw him over the following three years, I'd ask Adams if he ever received those tickets to a Vikings game from Moss. Willie said "No." He wasn't pushy.

I have not seen Adams in the garage in a couple of years, but if he's still with us, he should ask Moss to finally pony up some tickets.

Welcome back, Randy. When Moss greets the media today, don't be surprised if he blubbers. He's an emotional guy, but he's not a crybaby when it comes to dealing with the media. Surely Moss will want to complete this commitment the way he has with the mother of his children ... oh, never mind.

Having him on the team is at least going to make this season's implosion more entertaining. Loving the Vikings doesn't equal them having as good a season as they did last year.

C.J. is at 612.332.TIPS or cj@startribune.com.