RUSH: Here’s McKenzie in Pittsburgh. We have an 11-year-old, another young American patriot on the phone. Hi, McKenzie. Great to have you with us. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Mr. Limbaugh!
RUSH: Hi!
CALLER: I’m really excited to be on the show today.
RUSH: Well, I am excited you got through, too. You sound so filled with energy.
CALLER: Well, thank you. I just wanted to say I loved your book. I thought it was really creative.
RUSH: Well, I appreciate that. You’re thrilling me to death here, because it was exactly for that purpose that it was written, and to keep getting feedback from people like you, in your age group, I cannot tell you how excited it makes me feel.
CALLER: Well, I love history, and I thought it was so interesting to read about the Pilgrims, and I know most kids didn’t know that the Pilgrims actually rode on the Speedwell and it leaked before they rode on the Mayflower.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody knew about the Speedwell. There was a second ship that they couldn’t use, and the Mayflower was the one they ended up on — yeah, there are little things like that where some adults didn’t know that, either.
CALLER: Well, also, I had a question. Francis Billington in the book, was he real?
RUSH: Oh, yeah. Yes. Absolutely.
CALLER: Oh, that’s really amazing. At first I didn’t think he was real because he was just a naughty boy, and I thought that was just a character to spice up the book, but —
RUSH: No, no, no. We didn’t do that. Everybody named had an absolutely historical role. McKenzie, hang on.
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RUSH: Francis Billington was one of two sons of John Billington. Yeah, Francis Billington, a legitimate, real character. We did not make him up, McKenzie, nor did we make up the Speedwell, the first ship prior to the Mayflower.
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RUSH: I really feel bad. I took the call from the young 11-year-old girl, McKenzie, and I’m sorry. I just could not understand what she was saying, and the transcriber was having trouble understanding what she was saying. Plus there was the time crunch. She wanted to know if the character Francis Billington was real or if we’d made it up, and I just want to assure her that the Billingtons were very real.
Francis Billington, a character in Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims, is one of the Pilgrims. His father was John Billington. There were three Billingtons. The father was a real malcontent. In fact, they were the troublemakers. The Billington family were the troublemakers on the Mayflower. Francis Billington, he’s a bad boy, and McKenzie was intrigued by the guy, and she wanted to know if he was real or not.
Yeah, McKenzie, he was a real bad boy. He fired a musket on board the Mayflower. The Pilgrims had to live — many of them lived — on the Mayflower for months after they arrived. There wasn’t a hotel. They had to live on the ship, and this kid was a huge troublemaker. His father, John Billington, was tried by a jury and hanged for the murder of John Newcomb, another Pilgrim.
It was the first execution to take place in Plymouth colony. William Bradford writes he was about 40 years of age. But the Billingtons were a bunch of… You know, there’s always a miscreant in every group of people, and the Billingtons were the troublemakers. I mean, if it was Leave It To Beaver, they were Wally. Not Wally. Who was it? Eddie. They were Eddie Haskell. They were Eddie Haskell.
In fact, Francis Billington… McKenzie, if you’re still out there, Francis Billington, after they all went to shore, Francis Billington went exploring soon after their arrival and discovered a body of water that’s now known as the Billington Sea. But I found out here she’s 11 years old, she’s reading the book, and there’s a bad boy — this kid, Billington — and she’s wondering, “Did you make him up?”
No, no. He was actually very real. Now, we sent her a Ted-Tea Bear and the audio version. I didn’t have time to tell her we were gonna do that on the air, but Mr. Snerdley did. (interruption) No, no, not Beaver Billington. It was Francis Billington. John Billington was the father, Francis Billington, the malcontent kid son. It’s a fascinating tale. The Speedwell, too.
She also mentioned the Speedwell, which was boat prior to the Mayflower, which they ended up not being able to take. It wasn’t big enough and there were a number of problems with it. Look, this is all great because here she is 11, and she’s literally learning the truth about it in a way that she enjoys. I’m telling you, folks, I cannot describe for you what a home run it is to hear these kids call and talk about this with me, ’cause who knew how this was gonna work?
I mean, I’d never done a kids book before.
But it’s turned out to be just a great experience, and I love it every time they get through here and have questions about it.