![]() And then I remembered one of my favorite Mr Rogers songs, about that moment when children can either seize their anger and direct it into something constructive or let it seize them and do something awful. And so, of course, I didn't do it.īut I was still so upset I had to do something I just wasn't sure what. But, as I was logging in to YouTube to do this, I realized that it was, almost literally, the last thing Mr Rogers would want me to do. I instantly decided I would channel all the unpleasantness I was feeling and marshal all my skills as a professional writer, and use them to compose a merciless reply to that comment that would rip its author apart. I had read about "tears of fury" but I had never previously produced them. I had never felt such sudden, vicious rage because of something someone wrote or said. Under one of the videos, a commenter had written "lol mr rogers is a pedophile." I was so angry. Then, one night, I was watching clips of Mr Rogers on YouTube and I saw six words to which I had a profound physical reaction. I dithered because I didn't feel I was worthy of the subject and because I knew so many people knew so much more about him than I did. It took me five months after deciding I would write an article about Mr Rogers to actually write it. I have a good story about Mr Rogers, too, but it is so corny I have never written about it before, afraid readers would either think it was an invention or think I am both soft in the heart and soft in the head. but I hope I'm wrong, so that Mr Rogers can be there." May you have a lifetime of caring and a lifetime of growing.'Īnd, most remarkably of all, there was the irreligious man, an aggressive atheist of the type who thinks Richard Dawkins takes it too easy on organized religion, who quietly confessed, "I don't believe there's a Heaven. 'To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now - and to go on caring through all the times. Mr Rogers replied, thanking them for caring enough about him to want his opinion and adding: There was the man who was about to be married and whose friends, knowing how much he and his fiancée admired Mr Rogers, wrote to the great man asking for advice for newlyweds. There was the thirty-something office worker who always insisted her lunch break was scheduled for mid-morning so she could sneak to the staffroom and watch re-runs of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" on its TV. Last year, I wrote this article for The Spectator's website explaining why and, after it was published, I was inundated with messages from people who share my affection for him. And that was all I knew of him until a couple of years ago when an American friend, flabbergasted by my ignorance of someone she (and, I was assured, everyone else in America) had adored for decades, told me to watch an episode of "Neighborhood." Over the next ten years, I heard a few more jokes I didn't get on a few more American sitcoms, and eventually came to understand that Mr Rogers hosted some kind of kid's TV show. Until I was around 16, the only mention of Mr Rogers I ever heard was in a joke I didn't get on an episode of "The Simpsons." If you're reading this, there is a strong chance you grew up watching "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" and, if so, the idea that a man of my age did not grow up watching "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" may seem unthinkable. And I am not sure I have ever seen such a high concentration of goodness in one person as there was in Mr Rogers. ![]() ![]() The reason for this is one Roger Ebert has written about: in the movies, it is not great sadness that moves us most but great goodness. I wasn't surprised they made me cry anything to do with Mr Rogers tends to do that. The documentaries were "Fred Rogers: America's Favorite Neighbor" (2003) and "Mister Rogers & Me" (2010, first broadcast on PBS in March 2012). The TV presenter was, of course, Mr Rogers. "Fred Rogers: America's Favorite Neighbor" is out of print on DVD. "Mister Rogers & Me" is available to buy on DVD and to download from iTunes.
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