RUSH: Here’s Joe in Memphis. It’s great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. This is a great treat. I’ve been listening to you since 1994.

RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. That’s a long time. I mean, that’s from the very beginning.

CALLER: Yeah, right at the Republican revolution.

RUSH: Yeah. Yeah.

CALLER: This is great. You had a caller last week, I believe he’s about 17, that called and asked what life was like in the eighties for you, and it really struck a chord with me because I work with a lot of teenagers, and was a teenager in the eighties, and I had some observations that I wanted to share with you.

RUSH: Sure. Fire away. I remember ’cause it was a young guy that called, and he wasn’t alive then, and he hears all of us who were alive talking about the eighties, how great Reagan was, and he wanted evidence. “You know, what was it like?” So I gave him a couple things off the top of my head, and that’s what you want to add to, right?

CALLER: That’s right. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean about this fog. I do sense that, and in the eighties I had this exact opposite feeling. I’ve been working since I was 15, and a pattern started to emerge. When I went to a job, I would think, “Okay, what does this business owner want, and how can I facilitate that?” And usually within three or four months of any job I had, I was being promoted and I was being given more responsibility. At some point, there was a movie that came out called The Dead Poets Society that really profoundly influenced me, and it’s all about —

RUSH: That was Robin Williams, right? The guy with all the hair on his arms, Robin Williams?

CALLER: Robin Williams. But it was a really excellent movie. It was about “carpe diem,” seize the day, don’t waste your life. So I began to think, “Well, I feel like I don’t necessarily need to work for anybody; I want to work for myself.” Really since I was about 20 years old, I’ve always worked for myself, and there was just a real… I’m not gonna pretend I was real political in the eighties, but when I looked at Ronald Reagan, every time he appeared, there was a joy. I felt good, and I just assumed this was what presidents were like. I thought, “Well, a president motivates. A president inspires.” It wasn’t until years later that I realized how truly unique he was, but there was just a real sense of possibility, and I even think it was a real conservative era, and I think culturally conservatism and prosperity really promote unity. I mean, I remember The Cosby Show was one of my favorite shows. It was one of the best and the biggest shows on TV, and there you had an African-American —

RUSH: Oh, God, The Cosby Show. You know what? The Cosby Show today? You let the civil rights coalition get hold of The Cosby Show today and they’d call everybody in it a sellout. Yeah, Reagan had this ability to just make people feel good about the country and about themselves and the future, and that doesn’t exist today. I mean, even Obama’s fans are depressed. Even Obama’s supporters are part of this malaise. I mean, even the people that love Barack Obama are not happy, which is a phenomenal thing to me, but I know that it’s true.