Blake Esicar holds a photo of Rush Limbaugh in his family-owned meat market in Cape Girardeau, Mo., hometown of Limbaugh, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2003. Esicar was a childhood friend of Limbaugh's. (AP Photo/David Kennedy)
Posted on 10/12/2003 12:35:16 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. -- Rush Limbaugh's hometown boasts a splashy mural of its famous native son along a Mississippi River flood wall.
But before he gained celebrity and riches on the airwaves, "Rusty" Limbaugh pitched Little League baseball and Blake Esicar played first base, a lineup immortalized in a black and white snapshot Esicar proudly displayed Saturday in his family's meat market.
"Rusty could throw quite a curve ball," Esicar said, then shook his head.
"I just know he's dealing with quite a curve ball now, and we're just praying for him," he said.
Limbaugh, who often reminisces warmly about his upbringing in Cape Girardeau, startled his national radio audience Friday by acknowledging an addiction to prescription pain medication and announcing he was leaving the air for a 30-day rehabilitation program.
Blake Esicar holds a photo of Rush Limbaugh in his family-owned meat market in Cape Girardeau, Mo., hometown of Limbaugh, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2003. Esicar was a childhood friend of Limbaugh's. (AP Photo/David Kennedy)
Esicar was driving his delivery truck when he heard Limbaugh's announcement.
Because of Limbaugh's past anti-drug declarations and his family's stalwart local reputation, "it was a really big surprise to me," Esicar said. "But it's sinking in now."
The town of about 35,000 leans heavily Republican, and one radio station rebroadcasts Limbaugh's show for anyone who may have missed it.
On Saturday, even local Democrats were giving Limbaugh a break.
"Mostly the Democrats wonder whether Rush's following will stay with him. While I expect some will be disillusioned, they'll stick with him," said former Missouri Secretary of State Bekki Cook, a Democrat who once practiced law with Limbaugh's late father.
Customers at the Varsity Barber Shop in Cape Girardeau, Mo., read local headlines and discuss Rush Limbaugh's admission of prescription drug addiction Saturday, Oct. 11, 2003. Limbaugh shined shoes in this barber shop as a teenager. (AP Photo/David Kennedy)
At the Varsity Barbershop, where a teenage Limbaugh shined shoes, Jerry Lawrence settled into a barber's chair and read the Southeast Missourian's front-page story Saturday about the commentator's addiction.
"Rush admitted a problem and that is the first step. It is when you keep lying about it that you get in deep and lose respect," declared Lawrence, a Republican who used to deliver groceries to the Limbaugh house.
Willis Segraves, who cut hair while Rush shined shoes, said he favors Democrats, "and I think Rush wouldn't care for Jesus if Jesus was a Democrat, so we don't agree on a lot."
"But I think we would all agree that he should kick this habit and get his life together, and I hope he does," Segraves said.
Justin Buchheit, 23, a graduate student, said he was raised Republican and shares many of Limbaugh's views. But he wondered how an admission of drug use would play with Limbaugh's conservative fans.
"We love Rush in Cape, but the general public may be less impressed with him now that he has admitted a drug problem after being so tough on drug users on his show," Buchheit said.
In the past, Limbaugh has decried drug use on his bluntly conservative show, often making the case that drug crimes deserve punishment.
"Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. ... And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up," Limbaugh said on his short-lived television show on Oct. 5, 1995.
During the same show, he commented that the statistics that show blacks go to prison more often than whites for the same drug offenses only illustrate that "too many whites are getting away with drug use."
Down at the flood wall with the big Rush mural, a club's bicycle ride was wrapping up and cyclists were musing about how to balance the smiling image against the drug revelations.
Jay Moore loads up his bicycle in front of a mural of Rush Limbaugh Saturday, Oct. 11. 2003, after completing a 30 mile ride in Cape Girardeau, Mo. The flood wall on the Mississippi River has murals of many other famous Missouri natives, but Limbaugh is celebrated because Cape Girardeau is his hometown. Limbaugh, who often reminisces warmly about his upbringing in Cape Girardeau, startled his national radio audience Friday by acknowledging an addiction to prescription pain medication and announcing he was leaving the air for a 30-day rehabilitation program. (AP Photo/David Kennedy)
"I'm no Rush fan, but my husband is. Makes no difference whether you're a fan of Rush or not -- this could happen to anybody," said Martha Cox.
As cyclist Jay Moore loaded his bike on the back of his pickup truck, he said he remains a Limbaugh admirer.
"People that are Rush fans are with him no matter what -- and that goes double in Cape Girardeau," he said.
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What a coincidence. When I was in college at Murray State University in Murray, Ky, Cape Girardeau had the only tv station I could pick up. Little did I know the great Rushbo was possibly there, at the time (76-78)
1995 ?
"Sen. Kerry owes an apology to the more than 48 million Americans who suffer chronic pain. Few of them would see the humor in his flippant remarks about a desperate patient's attempts to relieve a devastating medical condition – nor do we.
"Substitute 'mental retardation' or 'cancer' in his remarks, and the level of outrage would be voluminous and loud. According to the audience reaction of laughter, the Democratic party that 'felt our pain' under Bill Clinton now finds it fodder for jokes.
"Courageous physicians are being prosecuted for prescribing legal pain treatment. This 'war on drugs' has turned into a war on doctors and the legal drugs they prescribe and the suffering patients who need the drugs to attempt anything approaching a normal life. Patients are having difficulty finding doctors to treat them as a result of misguided drug policy, law enforcement, and overzealous prosecutions.
"The result of recent prosecutions of dozens of leading pain specialists is that doctors are afraid to prescribe opioids, and patients can't get the drugs they so desperately need. Physicians are being threatened, impoverished, delicensed, and imprisoned for prescribing in good faith with the intention of relieving pain. And their patients have become the collateral damage in this trumped-up war.
"Some patients require very large doses, sometimes literally hundreds of pills in each prescription – a number that may seem alarming to people unfamiliar with current treatment standards in pain management. Other patients report that they have resorted to lying about being heroin addicts in order to get pain medication at methadone clinics."
The situation has become so critical that AAPS has sent out a warning to doctors:
"If you're thinking about getting into pain management using opioids as appropriate – DON'T. Forget what you learned in medical school – drug agents now set medical standards. Or if you do, first discuss the risks with your family."
From:
The War on Legal Painkillers
Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D. and Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
Saturday, Oct. 11, 2003
America owes you a lot. Thank you and get better soon.
Yes, that's the best they've got.
I've seen another quote from 1993- and this stuff is so mild, and so long ago, that to me, at least, it is irrelevant.
I'm really worried someone affiliated with the democrat party that either works there or is in for treatment too, will use this as an opportunity to further the leftists vicious attacks on Rush.
You might be right. It's been so long I don't remember. I had a little (10 inch screen) portable tv with a single antenna. Black and white, of course.
But I loved the area. Especially the Land Between the Lakes area. Loved to take my four wheel drive Bronco up there. In fact, I spent so much time in the outdoors my grades suffered. (I was doing post-grad work.)
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