RUSH: Here’s Lucia, who was on the phone from Lake Forest, Illinois. She’s 13 years old. I’m glad that you called, Lucia. It’s a pleasure to have you on the program today.
CALLER: It’s nice to be here today.
RUSH: Well, it’s our pleasure, too. Thank you very much.
CALLER: I’ve been waiting to call for so long. I love your books so much. They’re the best books I’ve ever read, and then when I heard that your Spanish version was coming out of book number one… June 9th you said, yes?
RUSH: That’s right.
CALLER: I was happy! I was so happy because I’m half Hispanic from my father’s side. He’s Venezuelan and my mother’s American. So I really like improving my Spanish a lot, and when I get the Spanish version, I feel like it’s really gonna help me improve, and I’m really happy that you did that.
RUSH: Oh, wow, this is so cool. That’s great. You sound genuinely excited about this.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: You almost did a better commercial for it than I did.
CALLER: (giggles) I also wanted to thank you so much, ’cause I was one of your first prize winners for Become a Star for doing a scene of one of your books. I was your first prize winner. I want to thank you so much for picking me, and I love your books. Me and my grandpa, we both love your books. My grandpa from my mother’s side, we love your books so much, and we love American history. He’s the one who introduced us to your books, and after your books came out… He really likes looking at our ancestry, too. He’s probably listening right now. He never misses a single one of your talk shows. We found out that we’re a direct descendant to William Brewster, nine generations back. I was so happy. It’s like, no wonder we love American history, ’cause our relatives were part of it.
RUSH: You are amazing. You have it all here, Lucia. You’re well spoken. You’re obviously educated and in the process of learning even more. You’re passionate. I mean, you’re amazing! This is… It’s just a pleasure to sit here and listen to you, and you found out that you are actually related to William Brewster?
CALLER: Yeah. I thought that was insane.
RUSH: Yeah, well (laughing) it is. It is! But you’ve got a direct line now to that which you’ve been reading about.
CALLER: Yeah. I was like, “Oh, my gosh!”
RUSH: Now, what did you win? We’ve awarded prizes. People have sent in videos, and other things to the Rush Revere website. What contest did you win?
CALLER: I won the Become a Star where I do a scene from any of your books, a 30-second scene.
RUSH: Yeah, which one did you do?
CALLER: I did the one from your second book when Rush Revere was talking to King Henry and Elizabeth with her dress and everything.
RUSH: Oh, yeah. My favorite part of that book.
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: King George, you mean, but nevertheless. Yeah, that was one of my favorite parts, ’cause you know why? That conversation between Rush Revere and King George obviously never happened.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: But it did in the books, and the purpose of that conversation was to take something like that in American history and make it relatable to people your age reading it today, ’cause I didn’t want these books to ever even get anywhere close to having a political agenda behind ’em or any kind of politics at all. All the books are is the truth, as we can best find it, about American history.
King George did not want the colonists to be separate from England and he wanted to tax ’em and wanted them under his thumb and he wanted them living under the tyranny of his reign. He resented everything about the fact that they had departed and formed their own New World. He sent his soldiers over here to keep everybody in line. So Rush Revere goes in for a conversation asking why do you want these people to live this way? Why do you want to control these people?
It was an effort to teach tyranny, Lucia, to 10- to 13-year-olds, that age-group. It was an effort to teach young people about the pitfalls of losing liberty and losing freedom and how precious it is and how important, how worth fighting for it it is. Rush Revere never really traveled to meet King George, I had free rein to make this — I had to be historically accurate, so King George’s words had to be very, very close to things he believed in his day anyway.
So it was really fun, and I remember when you focused on that, it made my day, because that was, to me — I mean, it’s hard to pick a most important part of any of these books, but that one was really very important to me for the potential lesson that it taught. So the fact that you got it and that you got it with passion and love it, you’re making my day here, you really are.
CALLER: Yeah. I just love your books so much. And I read them, and then we’re learning about American history in school, I remember my teacher telling us, we were learning about how the Americans were separated from Britain, he’s like, “The Americans were the rebellious teenagers who didn’t want to listen to their mothers or their parents and thought that they could do whatever they want, and parents were always right for them, except that they didn’t believe that.”
And I’m like, “Excuse me, Teacher, I don’t think that’s really correct.” And he’s like, “What?” And I’m like, “I don’t really think that’s correct. I was reading Rush Revere’s — Rush Limbaugh’s books, and I’m like, I mean, you should read this.” And he said, “Lucia, let me teach here,” like I’m interrupting him. I don’t think he got this.
RUSH: “Excuse me, Teacher, I don’t think that’s really correct”? Would I have loved to have been in your class at that time.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Well, what did the teacher say?
CALLER: He’s just like looking at me. Then whenever I interrupt him now, he always just looks at me. He’s like, “Lucia, I gotta teach here,” ’cause I always take forever explaining. I use your books, and he’s like, “Lucia, I gotta teach here.”
RUSH: (laughing) He says, “I have to teach here.” (laughing) Well, you didn’t get in any trouble for that, I hope?
CALLER: No, I didn’t.
RUSH: Oh, that’s good. That’s good. So what grade are you going to be in when school starts?
CALLER: I’m going to be in eighth grade when school starts.
RUSH: Eighth grade. So that makes you 14?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Fourteen, all right. Well, you sound like somebody — you like school, you do well in it, right?
CALLER: Oh, yeah, I really love school. All my teachers are great.
RUSH: Well, you’ve got it made. If you like school and your teachers are great and you got the Rush Revere books, what else could there be?
CALLER: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, what else?
RUSH: (laughing) Well, now, you were a prize winner there. Did we send you the audio versions of the books, the CDs, do you have those?
CALLER: I only have two of them. I’m missing the third one. Planning on getting that soon. I got all your books.
RUSH: Well, I tell you what, we’ve got that, we can send you that out. I want you to hang on here. Mr. Snerdley, I’ve gotta run because of time constraints here, but if you can hang on, Mr. Snerdley will politely get your address so we can get you some stuff out first part of next week. You already are a prize winner, so we know what we sent you, so we’re not gonna be redundant, but which book do you not have the CDs of the audio version for?
CALLER: The third one.
RUSH: The last one. Okay. Well, we’ll fix that. And, ah, throw some other stuff in there. We’re always acquiring cool stuff. So we’ll throw some stuff in there for you, Lucia, and God bless you. Thank you so much. I’m really glad that you —
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: — made through today and held on. I hope to talk to you again sometime, okay?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: That’s Lucia from Lake Forest, Illinois. And we will be back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: And what Lucia won from the Rush Revere website was an Apple desktop computer with production software, a hundred-dollar gift card, and a personalized winner certificate, so we’re gonna send her the CDs, the audio version of the third book; try to find her video for her, too.