In many ways it was a day like any other. There were murders and fires and accidents and nasty politics enough to fill the news. There was the raucous rattling of sabers from capitals around the globe. And yet the most powerful news of the day was about the death of a slight, quiet man who spoke to children as if they were people and became a model for many of us.
Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers, died this past week of stomach cancer. The Most Beautiful Woman in the World caught the news on the net when she went to check email "Oh, my God!" she said, with tears in her voice, "Mr. Rogers died."
Throughout that day and the next it seemed that everyone I met knew about Mr. Rogers death. And they were all touched in some way. Everyone had a story or a memory. We shared them with each other, united by a common grief, a common experience.
This experience wasn't like September 11 or the assassination of John Kennedy. We wouldn't remember where we were when we learned of Mr. Rogers death. It was more like a memory of the past that you share with good friends. Each memory seemed to draw out another one.
This wasn't a giant tragedy, it was the loss of a friend. And it wasn't like the death of any other celebrity I can remember because Fred Rogers was different. We knew that, sensed it, and we listened to what he had to say.
At the Emmy Awards in 1998 Fred Rogers received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his television work. When he accepted the award he stood at the front of a room filled with stars and would-be stars and media power brokers. He didn't give the usual acceptance speech.
He said, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, 10 seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are? Ten seconds of silence. I'll watch the time."
Then he stood there, silent, for the full ten seconds. And that audience of powerful and ego-filled and cynical men and women were silent too. For the full ten seconds.
Fred Rogers was a television star, but he was not a typical television star. He was a minister, but he was not a typical minister. He was a psychologist, but he wasn't a typical psychologist either.
He started out as an only child who got "every imaginable childhood disease" and who was left alone with his imagination much of the time. He would sit there in bed with his knees up to make mountains, and let his imaginary characters play out their lives on the counterpane. He grew up to be perhaps the only adult on the planet who could use the word "counterpane" both correctly and unselfconsciously.
He was also the young man with a marvelous grandfather, his grandfather McFeely. The family would go to grandfather McFeely's farm for Sunday dinner. Fred would spend time with the grandfather who always made him feel special without having to do anything special.
Grandfather McFeely would say things that you would later hear in Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. "I'm awfully glad you came." "You made the day a special day." "Just being yourself is what matters to me."
After getting a degree in music at Rollins College, Fred Rogers went off to New York to work in television. Years later he told an interviewer that he went into television because he hated it. "And I thought there's some way of using this fabulous instrument to nurture those who would watch and listen."
He worked as a floor manager for shows like "Your Hit Parade" and "The Kate Smith Hour." But he wasn't' finding what he wanted so he headed home to Pittsburgh to work on a brand new educational television station, WQED.
He got to work on the children's programming because nobody wanted to do it. He bought the set materials out of his salary of $75 a week. That first show was called "Children's Corner." Fred Rogers produced it, worked the puppet theater, and played the organ.
Later he went on camera for his own show for the Canadian Broadcasting Company. The show was called "Misterrogers" and aired in Toronto. It became the basis for "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" which became regular on WQED in 1966 and on national public television in 1968. The show still airs even though the last new one hit the airways in August 2001.
In an age of reality TV you could almost call Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood an "unreality show", and yet it's more real than most television because it deals with real situations. When Mr. Rogers' fish died he didn't just get some new ones and pretend that nothing happened. He used the occasion to talk to children about death.
That's part of the key. He talked to the children. He didn't talk down to them. He didn't use a cutesy voice. He talked to children as if they were people, the way his grandfather had talked to him. After almost fifty years of television that's still unique.
For Mr. Rogers the children always came first. They could always count on Mr. Rogers to provide a safe and friendly place. There would always be the same slow and gentle voice.
Mr. Rogers and the show were steady and consistent and safe. And it was educational. Children learned things.
Some of those things seem like standard educational fare. Mr. Rogers showed children how crayons were made and brought in cellist Yo Yo Ma. Other things seemed silly to adults but were very serious for the children.
Mr. Rogers showed children that they really were too big to go down the bathtub drain when the plug was pulled. He created a character, King Friday the Thirteenth who celebrated his birthday every Friday the thirteenth so that children wouldn't think Friday the thirteenth was a bad day. The children came first.
But some of the things they learned were things we could all learn. There were the shows about how to deal with death and how to tell children about death. There was learning about how to deal with anger.
You might think Mr. Rogers never got angry but we have his word that he did. "Of course I get angry," he said and he told the children and us (adults) that it was OK to get angry. What mattered was what you did when you got angry. Mr. Rogers told us, "You can get angry but you want to do things then that don't hurt you or anyone else."
He wrote a song about that. It was called "What do you do with the mad that you feel." He sang it to the children. And we listened in because it was for us, too.
It turns out that what Mr. Rogers said wasn't just for children after all. If I had listened better, I surely would have been a better father. I certainly would not have lost my temper as much. And that was just one thing, there were many other important things to learn from Mr. Rogers. We can imagine how he would teach them with that gentle way of his.
Can you say, "consistency" boys and girls? If you're dealing with children or if you're dealing with adults, they'll feel safer and more secure if they know what to expect from you. Mr. Rogers' show was predictable, the same format day after day and week after week for years. And Mr. Rogers was the same.
The last few days have been filled with memories of people who met Fred Rogers in person. They all have different experiences but they all say the same thing. Fred Rogers was the same in person as he was on his show. You could count on it. You could certainly count on the love.
Can you say "love" boys and girls? The consistency and the caring grow out of love. Fred Rogers showed us love for children and for each other and for the world around us. Love was unconditional. He loved you for being you, because you were special. He told us that, but mostly he showed us with what he did and how he did it. Fred Rogers lived out the principles he believed in.
Can you say "principles and values" boys and girls? Fred Rogers' principles were based on love and on concern for children. That's what enabled his show to stay the same when other shows and the world around them changed, and changed again.
He maintained his principles in the face of temptation and pressure, proving that being gentle is not the same as being weak and that the really important things don't change. He held us to his standard like he held that audience when he got his Lifetime Achievement Award.
We didn't listen because he would punish us. We listened because we didn't want to disappoint him. I only wish we held our leaders to the kinds of standards Mr. Rogers had for us.
In the end we are better people, both children and adults, because of Mr. Rogers. He held up a mirror to us so we could see ourselves. He helped us see that we were special. And he showed us that everyone else is special too, deserving of love and respect and care.
Can you say "role model" boys and girls? I knew you could.
