A few months ago I noticed that one of our PBS stations, the one we don’t watch as much, still airs Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I had fond memories of the show so I set our TiVo to record it and introduced it to Joshua a few days later.
He loved it immediately. I mean he looooves it. He hearts Mister Rogers! And over the past few months, I’ve fallen in love with good ol’ Fred again myself! I love the way he talks to his “television neighbor” – in this case my son. He speaks so gently and earnestly to the children who watch the show. Joshua hangs on his every word. I love the way he talks to and asks questions of his guests on the show – he speaks as if he is a child, asking questions that may seem dumb and obvious to us Smarty McSmartypants adults, but are exactly what our kids want to know. Some of the guests crack me up, they just cannot get into the act. On one episode, when Mister Rogers was visiting a film-processing plant (which prompted Joshua to ask me where the film is in my digital camera! Ha! He’s getting a history lesson!), the plant manager looked at Mister R. like he was coo-coo when he motioned to the camera and said, “I’d like you to meet my television neighbor.” I don’t know if this guy was just shy, or didn’t have kids, or had never seen the show, but he was NOT playing along. I wanted to smack him!
A couple of weeks after Joshua really started to love the show (his favorite part is of course, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe segments), I started to do a little research on Fred McFeely Rogers. I knew he had passed away fairly recently but could not quite remember when. A quick Google search told me it was February 27, 2003.
Exactly one year to the day before Joshua was born.
I got a little misty. Ok, I cried. What are the odds?
So, Mister Rogers, I know you are up in Jesus’ neighborhood now, and it is more wonderful than anything you could have imagined in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. But down here, there are those of us who are still very appreciative of you and all you did for children, and are still very privileged to be your Television Neighbor. Thank you, sir. Now please do me another solid and go take Trolley for a spin on the ol’ Streets of Gold for Joshua!
