BRETT: One question that comes up often is, we\u2019d always love to observe more about Rush\u2019s family back in Cape Girardeau as well. What\u2019s the story there? What happened there? Well, you know, Rush\u2019s grandfather and mother discussed him — “discussed” as in “to discuss.”<\/p>\n
(laughing) Rush\u2019s grandfather and mother discussed him in a rare interview from 60 Minutes and A&E. Did you know that? That\u2019s right. Back in 1991, Rush interviewed Pop (that\u2019s his grandfather) on his 100th birthday, and here\u2019s how that went.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I got an e-mail from good friends of mine, Steve and Kathy Abernathy in New Orleans. I met them both when she was the manager at Brennan\u2019s in the French Quarter. She said, “You\u2019ve got to play some of the interview that you did with your grandfather on his 100th birthday,” and the copy that we have of that…<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rushs-Grandfather.jpg\")
It\u2019s unfortunate. We\u2019re going to have to do some major EQ work with it to make it airable, because the sound quality is such it would distract, but we do have a number of excerpts of my grandfather discussing my career and me from a videotape that we put together called The Limbaugh Chronicles. He was also part of the 60 Minutes profile they did on me, and from the A&E Biography piece. So this is from the early nineties.<\/p>\n
This is a montage of my grandfather, who worked until he was 102. He died at age 104.<\/p>\n
LIMBAUGH SR.: Well, the Limbaughs are not inclined to be people who have fun, laughing and all that. But Rush\u2019s mother is, and I would say that all of his humor comes from his mother. When I hear Rusty, I can\u2019t help but think of his father, who he is so much like. When his father had a conviction about a thing, he didn\u2019t hesitate to say it — and he was like Pitt the Elder.<\/p>\n
If a thing needed to be said, he wanted to say it with emphasis. I can\u2019t help but believe that there is in this generation and there will be in future generations a conviction that those values are, after all, basic and that they ought to be preserved. I have been an active citizen in politics, and I think that I had something to do with instilling that idea in Rush, Jr.<\/p>\n
Now, as far as Rusty was concerned, I don\u2019t remember that I ever was in a position where I caused my ideas to prevail with him, but I\u2019m sure that his father was responsible for giving him that idea. I think that he has lived it and he is now, I\u2019m glad to say, giving it to a large segment of the American people.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Rush Limbaugh Sr., my grandfather, in the early nineties, a montage of his appearances on the video that we put together, also on 60 Minutes from the A&E Biography, and I had forgotten. (chuckling) I was stunned to think he didn\u2019t think he had any influence. (laughing) Quite the opposite. Here\u2019s my mother. I\u2019ve often told you how much I hated school.<\/p>\n
Hated it! I mean, I literally despised it — and isn\u2019t it amazing, ladies and gentlemen, that I, having hated school, have become one of the finest teachers ever to exist? Somebody wrote that today. I\u2019m not making it up. Somebody wrote that. I forget, somebody wrote a column about the 20th anniversary today and made that point, I guess at National Review Online, I think. At any rate, here\u2019s my mother talking about me in kindergarten.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/APP-20201-030121-Rush-Mom-Mother.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
MRS. LIMBAUGH: We had 4- and 5-year-old kindergarten here at the college. You know, “the training school,” they called it. And one day the teacher, who is now gone, had me in for conference, like she did all the parents. She said, “If Rush doesn\u2019t…” She called him Rush. “If Rush doesn\u2019t change his ways, he\u2019ll never grow to be the man his grandfather is, or his father.” (laughing)<\/p>\n
RUSH: I was a hell-raiser and causing problems even at 4 and 5 years old when I had to be stashed away in prison in school. (interruption) Well, I don\u2019t know, I was probably throwing spitballs, harassing the other kids, probably not taking a nap when I was supposed to take a nap.<\/p>\n
All I know is, I didn\u2019t want to be there, and when you don\u2019t want to be someplace, you\u2019re letting the people know that you think they are your captors, that you didn\u2019t want to be there. I didn\u2019t want to drink the Kool-Aid. I didn\u2019t like anything about it.<\/p>\n
Now, I told the story the other day after we played some of the sound bites from Nightline, how my mother was watching it with my dad and here\u2019s her version of the story as they were watching Nightline, my debate with Algore.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/APP-021618-Rush-Dad-1.jpg\")
MRS. LIMBAUGH: And that\u2019s when Rush, Jr., turned around to me and said, “Where did he get that?” And I said, “From you, of course,” and that really pleased son Rush, that his dad finally realized. It was a wonderful thing to know that he had absorbed his thoughts about politics. It\u2019s just like his dad all over. He is just his… The political views are his dad\u2019s. I\u2019ve always said he got his smarts from his dad, and I will say silliness from me. (laughing)<\/p>\n
RUSH: (chuckling) All right.<\/p>\n
BRETT: That\u2019s the best thing about looking back on family and looking back on where your roots come from, because there\u2019s a joint discovery there, right, when you think about this. The joint discovery is, you get to hear the impact as a child that you had on your parents later on in life. But then they get to discover how much they imbued in you, how much they were able to transmit to you — the values, the thoughts, the ideas, and the specialness.<\/p>\n
Look, it\u2019s not lost on any of us here — as we sit in this time when we\u2019re working on sad, but we\u2019re also remembering Rush for the great work that he did — that his father was a tremendous influence on him. Especially with the pieces and the speeches that his father penned and gave regarding the Mayflower and the founding of the United States, and of course, the signers of the Declaration of Independence and all that they risked.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ZZ-App-RUSH-BW-CONV-FLAG-3.jpg\")
That was a profoundly important value, and I can testify to this personally, having worked with Rush. It was a profoundly important value to take care of the republic and ensure that future generations would live as free people, choosing their own direction, choosing their own destination. That\u2019s on us to ensure that we pass those values on to the Rush Babies and the Rush Grandbabies and the Rush Great-Grandbabies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"