RUSH: We go to Houston next, and this is Evelyn. Hello, Evelyn. Nice to have you with us.
CALLER: Well, thank you. How are you, Rush?
RUSH: I’m fine. Never better!
CALLER: Well, good. I’m so glad… I put this on recording, and I just wanted to see what your opinion is. I want to write a book about growing up in the South in the twenties and thirties. Do you think it’s a stupid idea?
RUSH: Of course not.
CALLER: Well, I didn’t think you would, or I wouldn’t have called. (laughs)
RUSH: Of course not!
CALLER: Well, listen, how did you do it? Would you help me? I don’t know exactly how to go about it. But each chapter, Rush, would be something different — like it could be talking about our old nanny, which we loved dearly, or we could be talking about —
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, Evelyn. Hang on here just a second now. (sigh) It’s not right to ask a woman her age.
CALLER: Well, yeah, I don’t mind telling you my age.
RUSH: Okay, because I want to determine how much you’ve got to write about, plus you said something there that intrigued me, and that’s really why I want to know your age.
CALLER: Ok.
RUSH: Ballpark it. You don’t have to be specific.
CALLER: You figure it out. It was 1920.
RUSH: You’re 87. You’re 87 years old.
CALLER: Well, I’m going to tell you something, honey. I always tell people at church when they ask me how old, I say, ‘When you come to the funeral you’ll find out then.’ (Laughing.)
RUSH: So you had a nanny.
CALLER: Oh, we did have a nanny, and, honey, we loved her so much. When she was cooking in that kitchen, you better get out there. She’d fan that apron at you — and honey, it was more fun. We just loved her so much. In fact, I would dedicate the book to her.
RUSH: Then Evelyn, here’s what you have to do. You have a vibrancy, a buoyancy, an energy level, and you have it in just what little that you said in the way you just project yourself. You’re a very happy person. Just sit down and start writing, Evelyn. That’s how you write a book. Richard Nixon once said that to write a book, you need an iron butt, and what he meant is: when you sit down, you’ve gotta sit there and you keep writing and you keep writing, for as long as you can every day. It’s the only way it’s ever going to get done.
CALLER: Yeah. Each chapter would be about certain events that happened.
RUSH: Yes, absolutely. Sit down and come up with your idea. Organize your chapters and what you want each chapter to be, and then put ’em in the order you think they ought to be. They don’t have to be in chronological order. You can do it any way you like. It’s your book. You can do anything you want to do here. But the key is to sit down and start writing it. You’re going to have more fun doing this than you can imagine.
CALLER: I know it. I think I will have fun.
RUSH: Obviously you’re going to have to end this book with a chapter on your listening to this program.
CALLER: Oh, yes! Yes. I would. (laughing) Oh. In other words, that’s why you’re going to help me on it, huh? (laughing)
RUSH: Well, I’m not going to write it for you.
CALLER: Oh.
RUSH: What kind of help could I offer you?
CALLER: Well, just give me encouragement. That’s what I need. I pray all the time for strength and encouragement. But I don’t work a computer much. I would have joined whatever you had going, but I don’t have one.
RUSH: If you don’t have a computer, don’t get one. It’s going to mess up your flow. If you write a book, and you write long-handed, then that’s how you should do it. You don’t want to get caught up in the mechanics of the writing. Going to a computer would confuse you with the mechanics and it would cause your brain to slow down, and you need your brain at full speed. So the writing cannot be mechanical. Writing has to just be an extension of your hand and the pen has to be an extension of what’s in your mind as fast as you can get it down on paper. But the key to it… There’s no reason you shouldn’t do this. You’ll find you’ll start remembering things. You think you remember everything now, but you’ll remember things you have no clue that happened. You may vaguely may remember, but you’ll have all kinds of things pop into your mind. This will be a great thing for you to do and you sound like just the kind of personality to do it. You love your life, you love your past, you’ve got story you want to share with people. It’s a great thing. I hope nobody is trying to talk you out of this, except maybe yourself, for whatever reasons. But don’t do that. Just sit down and get started, and I think you’ll have a great time. Keep us posted, too, on how your progress is, will you?
CALLER: I will. I’ll do that.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: And now I’ll go for my walk, Rush. Don’t go telling everybody how old I am.
RUSH: Your timing is perfect because the show is over.
CALLER: Oh. I’m not recording this?
RUSH: It’s not quite over, but I have to go to a commercial break here.
CALLER: Okay. Bye!
RUSH: All right. Have a good stroll out there, Evelyn. It’s great to have you on the program today.