Remembering Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Sr.

RUSH: Here’s Dennis in Katy, Texas. Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Hello, Rush.

RUSH: Hi.

CALLER: Excalibur cigar smoking dittos to you.

RUSH: Excellent cigars.

CALLER: I just told your call screener that I wanted to take the occasion of Open Line Friday to relate to some of the people who listen about how I started listening to you. It happened to have been very fortuitously — I think it was the hundredth birthday of your grandfather.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And you had him on your show.

RUSH: That’s true. It was in Kansas City.
CALLER: ’90, ’91, something like that. My brother had been urging me — you know, he kept telling me — my brother’s name is Woody. My brother told me. He said, “You need to listen to this guy, you need to listen to this guy.” And I said, “Well, yeah, he’s just like all the rest of them.” But lo and behold I just happened to turn on the radio that day and as I said, it was your grandfather’s birthday and you had him on your show and I could not believe what I was listening to. I mean, you know, I finally found someone who was in the media who thought — at least talked the way that I did. And over the years, obviously it’s become, you know, obvious that you do think exactly like a real conservative does. One other thing I wanted to mention. You know, these guys come and go, all these folks. You’ve been an enabler for all the conservative talk shows and even as far as Fox News is concerned. You know, you take some of these guys like Bill O’Reilly, for example. You know, they ought to be paying you homage instead of dropping their little snide remarks because you made it happen for all of them.

RUSH: Well, that’s very kind of you to say. The pioneers take the arrows, though.

CALLER: Oh, I know.

RUSH: And when you’re at the top everybody is gunning for what you have and what you want, and that’s just part of the territory. But you’re very kind.

CALLER: True, true.

RUSH: You’re very kind. I appreciate that. You know, my grandfather lived to be 104. He worked until he was 102. He was a lawyer. He was born in 1891, so it was 1991 that you heard that program. He was in Kansas City being honored by the Missouri Bar Association at age 100. You got to wonder what you have to do to be honored by that group. It was a great week for him and our affiliate there, KMBZ, brought a surprise birthday cake during the interview and it was a great day. The whole family was there for this, because everybody was extremely proud of him. He was the patriarch of the family. He was the example that everybody tried to follow and the example everybody tried to meet, and some in the family have gotten closer than others, but the effort is what counts. And his influence, we all get together for Christmas, if that happens, he and our grandmother, their presence is still there. He was an amazing man, and I’m glad — if you were listening to that and it was your first show, I’m surprised you even noticed me. Because I just asked a couple questions, and he launched on a history lesson of this country and a defense of the legal profession like I have never heard before, explaining when he thought the country became a great nation, with Teddy Roosevelt and the Navy. He gave all these historical references. His hero was Abraham Lincoln.
He was only born something like 30 years after the Civil War ended, 35 or 40. He was born closer to that than the era in which he died. He was born in 1891, no television, no phones, barely any electricity. He wrote a book to all of us that was really just a compilation of the letters that he had written over the years to my grandmother when they were courting, in the horse and buggy era. Everybody said, “When did you have time to do this?” Relating their own lives to his. He said, “What do you mean, when did I have time? This is all we did.” There was no TV, none of that.
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