The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

by Maxwell King

“And I said, ‘No, no, no . . . but Mary Maud said that Jesus is coming tomorrow, and I don’t want him to come.’

Sr Jamesmariumm

“Let’s Talk About Freddish,” a loving parody of the demanding process of getting all the words just right for Rogers.12

anitize it

‘I’m going to puff this up with some air,’ because ‘blow it up’ might sound like there’s an explosion,

language importance appreciated

“Do you see a dead fish? A dead fish would be one that isn’t breathing or swimming or anything at all. Look down there and see.”

dead fish

discovered a blow-up sex doll. Michael Keaton, who started his television and movie career on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and was an indefatigable prankster, had put the doll in the closet to throw Fred into confusion.

blew updoll in closet Michael keaton

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.

Quiet life as time

“Our job in life,” he said at a graduation ceremony at Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania, early in his career, in 1969, “is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is—that each of us has something that no one else has—or ever will have—something inside which is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness, and to provide ways of developing its expression.”19

Our job in life