It was 2009, I was 24 years old. I had a leftist girlfriend and leftist friends. Partied in Seattle everyday we could. We spoke bad about America, we drank and did drugs like fiends. We thought our futures were bright, when really only depression and self hatred were the meals of everyday.

One Monday evening, I drove into Seattle as was my usual. Just got done picking up cocaine or weed. Can't remember which for the get together. About an hour into our debauchery, my friend came in and she was pissed. She began bad mouthing a man I had only heard my father talk about. Rush Limbaugh. I knew only one thing about the man, he was a conservative. So that meant I automatically had disdain for him. After she got it and ended her rant, everyone took turns bashing Rush. One by one they all said really horrid things about a man....then it was my turn. I was wondering how a lowlife like him could even be on radio and if he wasn't taken off by the morning, our country was doomed.

The rest of the evening, even through coke filled numbness, I felt...bad. I felt rotten. Here is a man that I bashed because at the time, I hated my father. And since my father liked him, he was bad. It just didn't feel right.

That evening I looked up his show but I was still drunk and high so I only remembered that it was a morning show. Come the next morning, I looked up his show and it had just started not long before my drive an hour south to my place. So I turned it on and listened. I didn't curse his name, I didn't bitch and moan, I just listened.

It didn't take long to realize....EVERYTHING my friends were say, was a load of horseshit.

Rush had depth to him, he could make the most complicated political crap easy to understand for us noobs in the political realm. He showed passion for his beliefs. Not anger, not spite. He showed me a new way that I can live. So I kept listening.

Not long after, I completely stopped going to Seattle and hanging out with those people. I stopped working where they worked as well. I didn't want that culture. Rush began to change me for the better.

Looking back, just a simple 11 1/2 years ago, the fruits of Rush's labor shines bright in my life. A wife, 2 kids, a big home, better job, and a lot of fun.

I will forever remember Rush as the man who changed my life. The man who I spoke ill of, but who in the end taught me so much of how to be a man. I'm thankful to have had him in my life. Even though it was over radio waves, he was a part of my daily life. He was my mentor, and in many ways, the father I never had growing up. I'll miss you Rush. I'll miss that beautiful raspy voice of yours. I'll miss the knowledge you bestowed upon me.

You're my hero.