I first started listening to The Rush Limbaugh Show in Virginia Beach in the early 1990s. I remember his hilarious trolling of how he was going to “endorse Bill Clinton for President” then going to the commercial break, then denying it to all the subsequent callers to illustrate Clinton’s duplicitousness dishonesty by being absurd. This followed one of the Rush Dictums: Illustrate Absurdity by Being Absurd.
I was hooked and listened to Rush off and on until his last in person show a few weeks ago (I had two regular periods where I was able to listen to Rush regularly: Working in the mailroom of Georgia-Pacific, and working in my present job where I have my own office).
I listened to him at other times in my life as able when driving around.
So much “Talent on Loan From God Duh.”
He was the freshest, funniest, and most concise conservative voice of our generation after President Reagan.
It’s too bad I didn’t know about him and his burgeoning show during my California years of the mid-to-late 80’s. While I was a student at Biola, I was able to watch a predecessor of his named Wally George.
The Wally George TV Show never took off and became national like Rush’s radio show. Perhaps if the internet had existed in those days, it might have.
But Wally George, although entertaining, was no Rush Limbaugh.
Knowing about and listening to Rush during my college years might have been truly life-altering.
Listening to him in the early 90s and up to the present was always encouraging and inspiring.
I’ll be mulling over his passing for a while.
One part of his story really sticks out. After a few firings / setbacks in his early career, Rush gave up on his Radio dreams and went to work for the Kansas City Royals in a marketing capacity. But he was miserable and mostly broke.
As he tells it, God kept nagging at him to reengage with his dream, basically telling him that the only person standing in the way was Rush, himself.
Rush listened and 30 years of radio later, the talk show radio world has these giant-sized shoes that may never be filled again.
I think Rush wouldn’t rule out his shoes being filled, although everyone else is right now.
This is because Rush, like Ronald Reagan, was an optimist who believed in God, who loans out talent on a continual basis.
I pray God raises up some more Rush Limbaughs, though they will be different and unique, like he and we all are.
May his Memory be Eternal!
