RUSH: Dan, is it Overland Park, Kansas, or Overland, Kansas — where are you?

CALLER: Overland Park, Kansas.

RUSH: Overland Park. I used to live there in a shack.

CALLER: Well, I know that, and, you know, back when you wrote your first book, The Way Things Ought to Be, I found out that you were headed towards KCI, that was before you were contributing to the health and wealth of the private corporate jet world. You landed on a … I don’t know which airline, but I figured out you were coming. I met you at the airport, you so graciously signed that book for me, and it sits at my bed ever since. So thank you for your kindness, and I love the book, and you’ve been a hero of mine for a long time.

RUSH: You’re more than welcome. Thank you very much for reminding me of that. Yeah. I remember that trip.

CALLER: Do you? Yes, I don’t think another soul in the airport knew you were headed there but me because I sat down and tried to figure out exactly how the heck you would get there.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: It worked. It worked.

RUSH: Very creative on your part, very industrious of you to be able to figure that out, because we block tail numbers, all kinds of things.

CALLER: Yeah. Yep. Anyway, I called today, Rush, to give you a little bit of a taste of what it’s like — you and I both are the exact same age, 61 years old — to be 61 years old, to be a self-contractor all your life, to provide for your life and have a nice middle class home and middle class life, a middle class wife, middle class children, and in about late 2009, watch your career fade to black. No pun intended, but that’s what happened.

RUSH: What career were you in?

CALLER: I was project manager, a really good project manager in the large-scale telecommunications market. We sold enterprise systems to large corporations and installed them, and I was a project manager that —

RUSH: What happened? The telecommunications market change that fast? Or it went south?

CALLER: It was slowly going south, but all of a sudden, when everybody knew that the sticks were being set in front of them to block ’em, the question used to be, man, what’s the latest technology? As we sat across the boardroom table, what’s the latest stuff we can buy? What can we do with voice mail? What can we do with integrating voice mail with your e-mail? Tell me all about it. We’re ready to go. Let’s upgrade to the next version. It became the IT guy would look at the corporate head and say, “Sir, we sure could upgrade this. We sure could upgrade that.” And he would look right back at ’em and say, “Do we have dial tone?” Yes, sir. “Are we answering calls?” Yes, sir. “We recording calls?” Yes, sir. “Okay.” That’s it. Until something bad happens, that’s where we are.

RUSH: So you stopped expanding?

CALLER: Pardon?

RUSH: Yeah, you stopped expanding. I don’t know. I’m sorry to hear stories like this. I really am. Thanks much for the call.