My family trooped down to the big lakefront convention center in Chicago to hear Rev. Graham in the late fifties. The crowd was vast and we were shuffled into another vast side room where we heard the speech/sermon via microphones, and of course I'd seen him, and saw him, many times later on TV. I was impressed at the reception when they passed the big popcorn buckets for offering. My family was long instated in a local established church, so we weren't "saved" into Rev. Graham's particular style of Christianity, but we were certainly interested in the magnitude. Many years later, my dad, still going to the family church for sixty some years or more, liked to travel to one or two mega-churches, and even took me to one, just to sample a different version and style of worship. I think even Rev. Graham realized later in life that, in trying to minister to Presidents and other high level politicians, he had perhaps gotten too close to their political positions, as tapes with Nixon and LBJ suggest. But Billy launched religion on TV in the media age and rose above at least most of the scandals generated around other men of the cloth. His wholesomeness, though sometimes grating in the face of difficult times and issues, seemed to help many people find a centered and positive place in their lives, and for that he can be respected and remembered.
