"Who IS this guy?", I wondered.
So I listened as long as I could hold the station. Some caller said something hysterically funny about the Bush-Dukakis debate of the night before, and this guy was making so much sense, I just had to know who he was.
But I was frustrated, because the reception wasn't great, and I just heard something like "Rush Limbaugh," and I knew that couldn't be a real name.
But then I caught him again, and when I moved to Sacramento in '89 started listening daily, which I have done ever since to the degree I'm able. (My son Matthew tapes him for me now.)
I remember in those early days wondering how he could say what he did about Ted Kennedy without being sued or something.
But my closest to bonding with Rush, as I've shared here several times, came the day after Clinton's first election.
I was lower than snake piss, I must say. Truly. The night before, a good man named Bruce Herschensohn had lost to a very evil-minded, phenomenally stupid woman named Barbara Boxer; other elections had gone wrong, and on top of it, Bush had conceded early -- because it wasn't even close.
My wife and I held each other and wept. We knew what this said about the country. We knew that the very worst elements in America would be strengthened and affirmed by this election. We had some idea of what was coming (though who could have known ALL of what was coming?).
And Rush had predicted like a one-point Bush victory.
So I tuned into Rush, very low and blue and dejected. And he pulled me out of it. (That takes some doing, too.) He was human, encouraging, heartening; heck, at that moment, he was just a really good, smart friend.
That happened a lot through the Clinton years. I heard my thoughts coming out of Rush's mouth. What I wanted to say to the nation, he often said. I remember once he had been playing a clip of some of Clinton's hot, steaming BS, and he started to talk while Clinton was still talking, and he said to Clinton, with real contempt, "Oh, would you just stuff it!" I roared; oh, to be able to say that to the worst man ever to occupy the Oval Office!
Anyway, I've rambled, and could ramble more. Yes, I disagree with Rush on points; yes, he's exasperated me; yes, I'm to the right of him.
But no one does what he does as well as he does it. He is irreplaceable. That jovial voice has changed, but he still says a lot of what has to be said, and he says it like no one else is saying it.
A fellow once told me that his office's attitude was that, if you put your finger in a glass of water and then pulled it out, and it left a hole, you were indispensable.
Rush would leave a hole.
Dan
PS-- thanks to the Rush-bashers for letting this thread be!