The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

by Maxwell King

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news,” Rogers had told his young viewers, “my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’

Rogers was a genius of empathy . . . fearless enough to be kind.”

Fred would park the car a couple of blocks down the street from the high school, get out, and walk the rest of the way to his classes.

As a little boy so often shy and reticent, Fred Rogers found a place to express himself, banging out tunes that reflected his emotions.

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”6

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“I’d love to have guests and present a whole smorgasbord of ways for the children to choose. Some child might choose painting, some child might choose playing the cello. There are so many ways of saying who we are, and how we feel. Ways that don’t hurt anybody. And it seems to me that this is a great gift.”39

religious faith should bring all sorts of people together, not pull them apart.

“So what would Christ be like? He would be like Fred. He would encourage you to do things that were right and would help other people.”

Rogers brought an intense creativity and a worldly connection to the fields of television and entertainment. McFarland brought an academic rigor and authority that Rogers desperately wanted as the underpinning for his programming. Their

don’t want you to teach sculpting. All I want you to do is to love clay in front of the children.’ And that’s what he did. He came once a week for a whole term, sat with the four- and five-year-olds as they played, and he ‘loved’ his clay in front of them. The children caught his enthusiasm for it, and that’s what mattered. Like most good things, teaching has to do with honesty.”20

“He encouraged me to speak my mind. He was like a father figure who allowed me to blossom and be creative. He really helped me think about other people and get a bigger global perspective. He taught me to think about my neighbor . . . to step outside of myself and embrace otherness, and always try and think about what the other person’s going through.”

You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.

#truth

suppose the thing I’d like most to be able to give you is hope. Hope that through your own doing and your own living with others, you’ll be able to find what best fits for you in this life. . . . I, for one, wish you good memories of this holiday. And I hope you’ll be able to look for all the different ways that people have of showing that they love

“His dreams, his stories, offer ways to control the chaotic life of the streets and neighborhoods in which many children live. Children are starving for story, the kind that builds on hope, the kind that echoes for a lifetime. We need story in our lives, not dreams based on greed. Mister Rogers turns to the viewer and says quietly, ‘Believe you. It is your story that is important. It is your mind and heart that can make things possible—just because of who you are.’”

. . I think that finding ways of showing our feelings—ways that don’t hurt ourselves or anybody else—is one of the most important things we can learn to do.”3

You can be a master of “the mad that you feel” by expressing your special talent, whatever it may be.

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