February 7, AD 2011

Remembering Ronald Reagan
Frank Allnutt

The centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth was celebrated on Sunday, February 6. It was a day of remembrance for many, myself included.

I was born with a hearing deficiency, so at church my wife and fidgety three-year-old son and I sat in the second or third row of pews where I could hear better.

Whenever Gov. Ronald Reagan was in the Los Angeles area on a Sunday, he and his wife Nancy and somewhat detached nine-year-old son, Ron, attended the church. They would be seated only moments before the start of the worship service—in the pew right in front of us. In time, Mr. and Mrs. Reagan greeted us with smiling nods of recognition.

A few times we chatted briefly after the worship service. In those days the governor was escorted by a State Patrol officer; there was no motorcade, no squad of security agents, no gaggle of assistants, no media; anyone could walk right up to the governor and greet him. He was that approachable. That’s the way it was in America back then.

One Sunday morning the first pew was filled by an unusual overflow of participants in the worship service. My family was seated in the customary second row. Then the Reagans entered the sanctuary, and they were seated in our row, with Mrs. Reagan next to me. During the sermon her stomach began to gurgle. I felt a little embarrassed for her. But then I thought, here is a dad and a mom and their son. And the wife’s stomach was gurgling. At that moment they seemed very human, very typical, very ordinary. Somewhat like my own family.

Fast-forward a few years to 1981. Ronald Reagan was the newly-elected president of the United States and I had become the head of a Christian foundation in Denver. At our new church home my wife and I became friends with Jack and Jo Ann, both a generation ahead of us. One of their adult sons still lived at home. Again, a dad, a mom, and their son. Another ordinary family in some ways like my own.

March 30, 1981 was the thirteenth anniversary of my marriage. But it turned out not to be a day of celebration. Television news flashed a bulletin that President Reagan had been shot and wounded by a would-be assassin. He was identified as John Hinckley, Jr. I immediately made the connection: He was the son of my new friends, Jack and Jo Ann Hinckley.

The next morning Jack and Jo Ann spoke with me by phone. Knowing that I was a Christian writer, they had a request: Would I help them write a letter to the Reagans over the shooting—one Christian couple to another Christian couple? Of course, I wanted to help in any way I could. But I suggested they clear the letter with their attorney before sending it. As I suspected would happen, regardless of their good intent, their attorney's legal advise was not to mail it. Even so, I think writing it was good therapy for them.

Four years later, President Reagan’s book, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, was published. I wrote a cover story and review of his book for my Christian book publishing trade magazine, Books for Better Living. I’ll share one brief quote from his book: “We will never recognize the true value of our own lives until we affirm the value of the life of others...there is no cause more important.”

May Ronald Reagan’s legacy live on in the hearts of those of us who remember, and may it bloom in the hearts of our sons and daughters.

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©Copyright AD2011 Frank Allnutt. All rights reserved. Content herein may be quoted, subject to the "fair use" doctrine of U.S. Copyright Law.

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