RUSH: Virgil in Columbus, Ohio. It’s great to have you on the program, sir. Glad you waited.
CALLER: Thanks a lot, Rush. How are you today, buddy?
RUSH: Just fine. Thanks much.
CALLER: It’s wonderful to talk to someone with a backbone. I don’t have a question or anything. I just want to tell you that I sent my son to school one day for show-and-tell with your book, Rush Revere.
RUSH: How old is your son?
CALLER: The teacher was against it.
RUSH: How old is your son?
CALLER: Nine.
RUSH: Nine. Okay so you send your nine-year-old son to school with my book, and the teacher was against it?
CALLER: Yes, because of the author of the book.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Well, she started reading it, and she soon found out that it’s a really good book for kids, and now she wants to borrow my copy (chuckles) for her other classes.
RUSH: You are kidding me!
CALLER: No. And I told her. I said, you know, if she would just read a little bit of it, that maybe she would get some insight on the actual history. And, you know, she didn’t like that too well. But she still wants a copy. (chuckles)
RUSH: Help me out. What is show-and-tell?
CALLER: It’s like when you take something that, you know, you like very much in to school and you show it to the class, and you talk about it and things of that nature. Whether it be a book, a goldfish, whatever.
RUSH: The students get up and face the students alone, and they talk about what it is they want to share with the class and so forth?
CALLER: Pretty much, yes.
RUSH: And the teacher was opposed to it — it’s a female — until she saw the book and said, “Wow, this is not bad”?
CALLER: Yeah. I thought it was just hilarious that she actually called me to borrow my copy of the book, and I told her that before too long I will be getting the second one, as well as the audiobook.
RUSH: Well, you know what I’m gonna do?
CALLER: She said she wanted to borrow those as well.
RUSH: Which book did your son take to school?
CALLER: The first one.
RUSH: The first one.
CALLER: Your first children’s book.
RUSH: I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m going to need you to hang on here when we’re finished so that we get your address.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I’m gonna send you audio versions of both books and more, so you can take the teacher one.
CALLER: I would appreciate that.
RUSH: You can take her the second one if you want. I’ll send a couple, because we’ve donated books.
CALLER: That’ll work.
RUSH: We’ve donated 15,000 books to schools all over the country, but obviously we missed this one. We can’t hit ’em all. But this is an amazing story. This kind of stuff is exciting. It continues to encourage me. This is great news. So if you’ll hang on, we’ll get your address in Columbus and you can give it to the teacher. Since the teacher called you, I mean —
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: — you have every reason to call her back and say, “Hey, I’ve got something for you,” and then you can take it over to her and make sure it’s the second one. Maybe give her both. I’ll send enough so that you can give her both of them.
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RUSH: You know, folks, this is so cool. We might be educating some teachers as well as the students. Look, I don’t want to make it bigger than it is. But in my experience, you mention my name in a school, and the teacher’s gonna have the predictable reaction, as this one did. But then the book changed her mind. That is really, really small but nevertheless an indication of the potential that it is possible.
Anyway, that kind of feedback encourages me on the mission aspect of this.
Remember, we’re not doing these books just to write books just because it’s been a long time and it’s time to do another one. There is actually a mission behind this. This country is just wonderful. There’s no reason to be ashamed of this country. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best place on earth to be born, the best place on earth to live, the best place on earth that man has ever devised for himself to thrive in the history of humanity.
The absolute best. There’s no reason to be ashamed of it or feel dishonored, there’s no reason to hate this country, and yet that’s all been taught. The truth of the founding of this country has just been distorted, and in some cases lied about now. So this is one small effort to get to young people. They’re never gonna listen to the program, obviously. But it’s a way to get to them in a nonpolitically charged way the truth of this country.
I think back to when I was in kindergarten and grade school and learning this stuff, and since I started this project, I’ve actually asked myself, “What kind of person would I be if I had not been taught what I was taught. If I hadn’t been taught patriotism, if I hadn’t been taught love of country — if I hadn’t been taught about the great people, the Founders, and people who followed them — what would I be?”
I wouldn’t be qualified to do this program. This program would not be a success if I had not been taught what I was taught. If I had been taught what’s taught today, I’d just be your average, run-of-the-mill person in the media that thinks this country is unjust and immoral and has got to pay a price for all the mean things it’s done to people. That’s not what people want to hear about their country, but they’re being taught that.
At a young age, if that’s all they’re taught, that’s what they’re going to think, and then they’re gonna grow up thinking the country is in vast need of reform and it’s just an absolute shame. If you love the country (and I do) and if you’re proud of it (and I am), there’s no reason for somebody not to be. You know, I’m naive, admittedly so. I also live in great conflict. For example, one part of me doesn’t understand how people could hate this country.
Then the other side of me says, “Yeah, I do, if they’re taught it.” Maybe African-Americans, that’s a huge hill to climb — slavery, and turning something like that into love of country. I can understand that intellectually. But at some point you have to realize that was then, that was way back then, and we’re one of the few countries that’s ever abolished it. We’ve gone to war with ourselves to do so. There’s even a, you know, positive ramification from that.
But the opportunity, the freedom? I don’t understand hating it. I literally don’t understand elite leftists and their hate for the country. To me, it’s irrational. But then the other side of me understands their irrationality ’cause I know who they are and I understand what their inner needs are, and so I understand. But it still makes no sense to me.
So the mission here is to try to get to these kids before they are totally gone. We have to get to ’em sometime later in life, and when I get a call like this with a story like this with a teacher who didn’t want the book even brought into the school for the show-and-tell, and then called the student’s parent asking for it? You’ll excuse me for taking a positive out of that.
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RUSH: So I get an e-mail from Mr. Snerdley. He’s not here today, taking the day off, and he said, “You know, you really don’t know how to market yourself.” And he says, “Here you just spent five minutes talking about your book and you never gave anybody the title.” He-he-he. If he’d have been here he’d have been shouting in the IFB, “What’s the title? What’s the title?” Well, there are two: Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims and Rush Revere and the First Patriots. And they’re the both concomitantly on the New York Times best-seller list for children. Concomitantly. It’s an amazing thing.