Meeting Michael Reagan

I met radio talk-show host Michael Reagan two evenings ago at a reception in nearby Newberry, Florida. Aside from jumping at the chance to hear the eldest son of my favorite U.S. president tell about his relationship with his dad, I also wanted to ask Mr. Reagan a question or two that wouldn't have been appropriate to his call-in show, even if I could get through.

I just wanted to find out where he attends church, because that tidbit would satisfy my curiosity about the language Reagan uses whenever he mentions his faith in Christ. I've noticed from time to time that he'll refer to "getting right with God," a phrase every evangelical knows is typical of us "born again" Christians, i.e., Baptists, Nazarenes, Pentecostals, and Charismatics. And for some reason I had a hunch that Michael Reagan might be a Charismatic Christian.

Turns out he's a member of Dr. Jack Hayford's congregation at Church on the Way, in Van Nuys, California. Yeah, the guy goes to a Foursquare church, in fact the Foursquare church, since Hayford is the President of that Pentecostal denomination.

The other question was related to his dad's outdoor funeral service, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. I had been very impressed by the genuineness of their pastor, Dr. Michael Wenning, who officiated that day. Now retired from his pastorate at Bel Air Presbyterian, Wenning seemed truly to be a man of God, something not always assured in the pulpits of high profile churches.

Michael said yes, that Dr. Wenning is a wonderful, godly man, adding that he has retired here to Florida. I also learned that he had previously served as senior pastor of Penn Hills Presbyterian, a Pittsburgh church where my Living Sound team ministered a few times in the 70s and 80s. Thinking back, I'm fairly sure Dr. Wenning was our host, although the strange familiarity I felt when watching him on television last summer may simply be due to his South African accent (He's from Durban, my virtual second home for a few years).

Michael Reagan's after-dinner speech Thursday evening was, predictably, an autobiography about growing up Ronald's son. He told of his youthful rebellion, which actually lasted well into manhood, and his close relationship with his dad, which really blossomed later in life, although they had always been on fairly good terms.

Most moving was a story I'd already heard during a television interview, but it was no less sweet the second time, particularly because of the response I knew it would bring from our local Republican, largely Christian, audience.

Michael explained that his dad was from a generation where men didn't hug other men, even if they were related. Thus Ronald had never hugged son, Mike, nor had they ever exchanged I-love-you's, at least not that the son could remember.

So it was, after Michael's conversion to Christ in the late 1980s, that he determined he would initiate that long overdue hug and tell his dad he loved him. That fateful day finally came in 1991, as the ex-President arrived at the studio for an interview to promote his latest book on his son's radio show. Michael said hello, and straightaway rose and embraced Mr. Reagan, whispering over his dad's shoulder, "I love you." At first the ex-President stiffened, he said, and then softly replied, "Well son, I love you too."

That moment began a deeper friendship, and a sharing of their Christian faith which both men would cherish until the very end. In fact--and here's the tear jerker--they never again greeted or parted without a hug and an I-love-you. Never. Not even after Alzheimer's Disease began to steal his father's mind.

Michael said that even after his father could no longer recall names, he remembered him as that young man who always hugged him. One day, in fact, he and wife, Colleen, had finished their visit with his ailing father and wife, Nancy, and were getting in their car to leave the Reagans' Santa Barbara ranch, when Colleen told him he'd forgotten something important. When Michael asked what his wife meant, she simply pointed to the front door of the little bungalow once known as the Western White House. There, said Mike, stood his dad, arms open wide, awaiting his hug. President Reagan, who found even walking difficult, had shuffled all the way from the other end of the house to that doorway, because even with Alzheimer's, he had remembered that this was the man who hugged him. And he wanted that hug.

Told you it was a tear-jerker.

I was also impressed with the way Michael Reagan took time to honor his mother, Jane Wyman, who is now 91 and living in Palm Desert, California. I've been more aware of Ms. Wyman than most of my generation, if for no other reason than my mother's favorite movie "Johnny Belinda," for which Wyman won the "best actress" Oscar in 1948. (That was also the year in which she and Ronald Reagan were divorced.)

Hollywood takes an awful toll on people's lives, and Jane Wyman evidently made her share of bad decisions, resulting in much heartbreak for herself and her children, including Michael's repeated molestation by a camp counselor his mother unwittingly trusted too much. But Jane also managed to instill many good values in her kids, and taught them some valuable lessons. Michael, who spent his first forty years haunted by bad memories, appears since to have chosen to remember the good. Thursday evening he related one sweet story to show his mom's best side.

It was 1955 and Mike, like virtually every ten-year old boy before him, asked his mom for a bicycle. He could have one, she replied, only if he bought it himself. Already aware of his family's considerable wealth, Michael asked why he should have to pay for it. Paraphrase: "I've got enough money to buy you anything you could ever want," she told him. "But if I do that, someday you'll be a forty-year old boy. However, if I teach to you work, and to appreciate what you have, then someday you'll be a forty-year old man."

In spite of his mother's wise words, Michael Reagan did indeed grow up to be a forty-year old boy, waffling from one rich-and-famous career to another, hoping somehow to cash in on his dad's name. He even managed to become a champion speedboat racer, before discovering that his skill as a talker, and his last name, could get him a job in radio. But it was also at the age of forty that Michael Reagan surrendered his life to Christ, and became, at last, a man.

I'm glad I met him.