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That’s how I felt—OH NO. WE’RE NOT READY.

He was just on the radio, what, two weeks ago?

Who remembers their first Rush experience?

For me, it was the early 1990s. Someone asked me if I ever watched Rush Limbaugh.

A what the, what the?

In those days,the local San Diego station showed Rush at 2 am; I stayed up.

(The ties! Remember the ties)?

It quickly progressed to my then-boyfriend on the roof installing those old whirlybird big, rotating antennas.

Boyfriend had but one comment before grabbing a cold one: “All for that one guy”.

I had no choice but to find the boyfriend a more suitable home.

My experience? I was a conservative in the 1980's, converted by Ronald Reagan. My first presidential vote was for Reagan in 1980, and again, happily, in 1984. But, many of you too young to remember, Ronald Reagan got the same treatment George W. Bush and Donald Trump got from the media, if, perhaps on a lower scale. After eight years of being told that Reagan was going to blow up the world...that he hated the homeless...that he wanted people to die of AIDS...that he wanted to destroy the environment..., well, my convictions were wavering.

Perhaps it was time for this doddering old man to go. You have to understand, almost ALL of the media was liberal. This was before FOX. Before the Internet. The media had a virtual monopoly on what the slant of the news was. I mean, there was William F. Buckley, but he was pedantic and available for like half a hour a week on PBS.

So, I used to listen to WBEN during the day at work. They had a parade of lefties, culminating even in the rebroadcast of the audio of the Phil Donahue show. Then one day, they announced that a new program was being carried. The Rush Limbaugh show. I remember thinking to myself, what kind of leftie is THIS going to be?

Like everyone else, I was stunned. Not only was he a conservative, he made fun of advocates for feminism, the homeless, animal rights (remember them?), environmentalists. He went on the attack. I had been conditioned that one did not criticize those kinds of people. They only wanted good things to happen. Rush had the keen perception that these people could care less about their so-called 'constituencies'. They were Trojan Horse causes designed to bludgeon conservatives into submission and clear the way for socialism. He did not accept the premise. He fought back. He completely reformulated my thinking process. AND he did it with a scathing humor and the full and uncompromising courage of his convictions. He was accessible, and he had 15 hours a week to work with. He will be missed, but I think he spawned an army of Dittoheads.