TMC
01-23-2023, 11:00 PM
http://comforttv.blogspot.com/2023/01/remembering-beloved-neighbor-20-years.html
In every episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Fred Rogers would take a few seconds to feed the fish in his aquarium. One day he received a letter from a girl who was blind, who wrote that she sometimes worried about his fish and if they were being fed every day. After that, when the time would come to feed them, he would always say that’s what he was doing, so that one girl in his audience would know they had not been forgotten.
When I hear a story like that, I realize that however many awards and honors Fred Rogers received in his life, they were not nearly enough.
Not that he cared about such things – for Mr. Rogers the work was the only reward he sought. He was grateful for the opportunity to spend a half-hour on television speaking to children in a way that made them feel special.
It wasn’t just the children of divorce, or the abused kids who really needed an encouraging friend. I think about all the kids who were lonely, or ostracized because of their race or religion or how they looked. Perhaps they were too short or tall, too thin or overweight, a little slower to learn, or they just didn’t fare as well in the DNA lottery as their more popular and attractive classmates. For these children, every day at school was a reminder of what they were not. And every day with Mr. Rogers was a reminder that someone liked them just the way they were.
He was a daily presence on television for 33 years; most of them in a pre-cable era when few children’s shows aired on weekdays. He communicated with multiple generations of millions of kids, and we’ll never know how many of them were comforted by his benevolent words and gentle support.
It has been 20 years since the passing of Fred Rogers. The final new episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was broadcast two years before that. Part of me is glad (or perhaps “relieved” is more apt) that it ended when it did. He and his show were everything that television and our current culture is not – soft-spoken, unhurried, patient, focused, moral, forgiving.
In every episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Fred Rogers would take a few seconds to feed the fish in his aquarium. One day he received a letter from a girl who was blind, who wrote that she sometimes worried about his fish and if they were being fed every day. After that, when the time would come to feed them, he would always say that’s what he was doing, so that one girl in his audience would know they had not been forgotten.
When I hear a story like that, I realize that however many awards and honors Fred Rogers received in his life, they were not nearly enough.
Not that he cared about such things – for Mr. Rogers the work was the only reward he sought. He was grateful for the opportunity to spend a half-hour on television speaking to children in a way that made them feel special.
It wasn’t just the children of divorce, or the abused kids who really needed an encouraging friend. I think about all the kids who were lonely, or ostracized because of their race or religion or how they looked. Perhaps they were too short or tall, too thin or overweight, a little slower to learn, or they just didn’t fare as well in the DNA lottery as their more popular and attractive classmates. For these children, every day at school was a reminder of what they were not. And every day with Mr. Rogers was a reminder that someone liked them just the way they were.
He was a daily presence on television for 33 years; most of them in a pre-cable era when few children’s shows aired on weekdays. He communicated with multiple generations of millions of kids, and we’ll never know how many of them were comforted by his benevolent words and gentle support.
It has been 20 years since the passing of Fred Rogers. The final new episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was broadcast two years before that. Part of me is glad (or perhaps “relieved” is more apt) that it ended when it did. He and his show were everything that television and our current culture is not – soft-spoken, unhurried, patient, focused, moral, forgiving.