WATCH: Jimmy Carter’s grandson honors 39th president's life, legacy in eulogy | Carter Funeral

Former President Jimmy Carter’s grandson and former Georgia senator, Jason Carter, paid tribute to his grandfather Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral.

Jason Carter emphasized that his grandparents were “regular folks,” recalling his grandfather’s outfit of choice as “'70s short shorts and crocs” and their home decorated with fishing trophies, family photos on the refrigerator and a sink rack where they “would hang Ziploc bags to dry.”

Jason Carter drew laughs from the audience with a story of the former president mistakenly calling him while trying to take a photo on his new mobile phone.

“They were small-town people who never forgot who they were and where they were from, no matter what happened in their lives,” he said, adding that his grandfather modeled integrity by being the same person in private and in public.

“He shared the world with me: the power of an atom, the beauty and complexity of a South Georgia forest,” Jason Carter said. “When we fished, he celebrated the majesty of everything from the smallest minnow to that grand circulation of waters.”

In the end, he said, Jimmy Carter’s life was a “love story,” not only with Rosalynn Carter, his wife of 77 years, but also the public he spent a lifetime serving.

“I believe that that love is what taught him and told him to preach the power of human rights, not just for some people, but for all people. It focused him on the power and the promise of democracy, its love for freedom, its requirement and founding belief in the wisdom of regular people raising their voices and the requirement that you respect all of those voices, not just some,” Jason Carter said.

The official state funeral in Washington on Thursday caps a long farewell that began — and will end — in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. Carter died Dec. 29 at age 100.

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