The Real Live Preacher thought he was over Mr. Rogers
Damn. She caught me, so I went ahead and put my hand under my glasses and wiped away the tears. I don’t like people seeing me cry. When I thought I was under control, I talked about Mr. Rogers some more.
I told her how speaking into the camera was his idea. He wanted to talk to children. I said that there were probably a lot of people out there who grew up pretending that Mr. Rogers was their dad. Some kids don’t have any grownups in their lives who will talk to them like that. I told her about the Emmy he won and how the audience grew quiet when he stepped to the microphone
I wonder how many people pretended Mr. Rogers was their dad, how many boys and girls learned important lessons, about being genuine and kind, from him. Always gentle, always courteous, always a role model.
I came across this absolutely wonderful piece by Tom Junod who wrote about Mr.Rogers -- somehow I just can't call him Fred. Can You Say...Hero? was his eulogy to Mr. Rogers, published in Esquire in 1998.
When Mr. Rogers accepted the Emmy for Lifetime Achievement, Junod writes
he went onstage to accept Emmy's Lifetime Achievement Award, and there, in front of all the soap-opera stars and talk-show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are….Ten seconds of silence." And then he lifted his wrist, and looked at the audience, and looked at his watch, and said softly, "I'll watch the time," and there was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn't kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked…and so they did. One second, two seconds, three seconds…and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier, and Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said, "May God be with you" to all his vanquished children.
Another snippet from Tom Junod's Can You Say ...Hero? that had me crying by the end.
ONCE UPON A TIME, Mister Rogers went to New York City and got caught in the rain. He didn't have an umbrella, and he couldn't find a taxi, either, so he ducked with a friend into the subway and got on one of the trains. It was late in the day, and the train was crowded with children who were going home from school. Though of all races, the schoolchildren were mostly black and Latino, and they didn't even approach Mister Rogers and ask him for his autograph. They just sang. They sang, all at once, all together, the song he sings at the start of his program, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" and turned the clattering train into a single soft, runaway choir.
I am so happy that my friend Bob Berks, has been commissioned to create a sculpture of Mr. Rogers which I saw underway last summer. Bob Berks is the American sculptor whose "Biographies in Bronze" encompass some 300 portraits. You can see some of them at his official website including videos, made by his talented wife Tod, where Bob talks about sculpting the Albert Einstein now on the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences, Frank Sinatra and his quartet of Lincoln sculptures, one of which I gaze on every day on my desk, one of my most treasured possessions. I just know that his sculpture of Mr. Rogers will be treasured by millions who have a special place in their heart for that man who helped love them into being.