Dan Burton: “a few years ago I was riding on an airplane, and I sat down next to a fellow who was a little reluctant to start talking…”

“a few years ago I was riding on an airplane, and I sat down next to a fellow who was a little reluctant to start talking to me initially. But we had about a 3-hour flight, and, as the flight progressed, I got a chance to get to know this fellow. His name was Eddie Rabbitt, and he was a country and western singer who over the last 20 years had 26 number one country hits. And Eddie and I became very good friends, and we talked on the phone quite frequently. We did not get together very much, but we talked on the phone on a regular basis. And about a year ago I found out that Eddie was suffering from lung cancer. He was 55 years old at the time, and he had part of his lung removed, and he went through chemotherapy and all the other things that people go through when they suffer from cancer of almost any type anymore. And Eddie was a very courageous fellow. He fought very, very hard to whip cancer, and they thought that they did have it whipped but, unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago Eddie Rabbitt passed away. He was one of the finest men I had the opportunity to know. He was a good family man. He feared God. He cared about his country, and he believed that entertainment, country and western entertainment, should be very clean and free from obscenities. And he talked about that quite frequently.”