November 12, 2014
“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”:
Why did it work (and what was Fred really like)?
Eliot Daley
Producer, co-writer of "MRN,” President of the production company—1970-1975
“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”:
Why did it work (and what was Fred really like)?
Eliot Daley
Producer, co-writer of "MRN,” President of the production company—1970-1975
Minutes of the Tenth Meeting of the 73rd Year
CALL TO ORDER: The Old Guard of Princeton’s TENTH meeting of its 73rd Year came to order
INVOCATION: Don Edwards led
MINUTES: Read by Julie Denney Clark
Copies of all minutes are available on the Old Guard website
GUESTS: Hosts: Guests:
Jock McFarlane Maggie Sullivan
Eliot Freeman Marsha Freeman
David Rosenfeld Joan Rosenfeld
Eliot Daley Patti Daley
Chase Hunt Suzanne Hunt
ATTENDENCE: 112
ANNOUNCEMENTS
WHY “MISTER ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD” WORKED
(And what Fred Rogers was really like…)
We sat anxiously waiting to hear about a time in our life when maybe our children or grandchildren watched Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood! How revealing it was when the Old Guard member, Eliot Daley asked, “…how many of you here in this room, with a show of hands, know what Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood is”? All hands quickly went up! With laughs and a feeling of joy, Eliot decided to flip through the next slide!
He gave an overview of basic facts about Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood:
Eliot then showed us clips from the show and told us to notice Fred’s songs. He wrote about 200 songs that were centered around the interests of the preschool audience. His songs were a key connection between him and the child.
He wanted us to also notice the music director, Johnny Costa who had a jazz trio. He played the background music. It was the only thing about the program that was ever improvised. He had an extraordinary way of anticipating where Fred was going and where the child would be.
We watched the program of Mr. Rogers come through the door singing his signature song, taking off his coat and putting on his sweater, then zipping it all the way up and then down a little, taking off his shoes, putting on and tying his sneakers. We dusted off our memories, then Eliot asked, “Remember?”
He told us that at the heart of the program was a super computer that had a capacity of 2,000,000 links per second. Everything that was done on the show was processed to and through that computer.
There is no sense in talking about Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood unless you talk about the child. At this point Eliot showed a video of a three year old child looking up questionably with captions of what he might be saying, such as:
Eliot now takes us in the direction of Entertainment vs. Communication:
At Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood two people had jobs:
At this time, Eliot celebrates and gives homage to Margaret McFarland who was the unsung heroine of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. She was a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh where she started a Child Study Center with two colleagues, Benjamin Spock and Erik Erikson. She became an authority on the inner life of a preschool child.
When Eliot and Fred would write scripts for the program, Eliot would go to Margaret’s office to talk about child development. She would then start talking to the point that Eliot was not sure that she understood his question! She would just talk and talk about all kinds of things and after about an hour or an hour and a half all of a sudden all of these threads would come together and Eliot would be standing right inside of a three year old child! Margaret was just masterful in her understanding and masterful in her capacity to not intellectually teach him but to draw him into the world of a child. Having Margaret at their disposal, Eliot and Fred were able to tackle some subjects that other people didn’t.
We viewed the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood segment where he found a lifeless fish at the bottom of the fish tank. He removed the fish with a net and put it in a container with salt water. Mr. Rogers said that he heard if you put a lifeless fish in salt water it might revive it. He put the fish in the salt water but the fish was dead. He then took the fish, wrapped it in a paper towel, took it outside and buried it in the ground. This segment was more than four and a half minutes, addressing the notion that children have short attention spans. Eliot stated that “…short attention spans are entirely tied to the inherit interest or lack of interest in the subject.”
Ground rules are:
For a number of years they thought that it would be important to do a week on divorce, but they could not figure out a way to do it that would be sufficiently in depth and honest to the reality of divorce for children who were living through divorce or who have experienced divorce, without doing them any harm and at the same time without alarming children in homes where divorce had not happened.
Another segment of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was featuring one of the characters on the program, Speedy Delivery, Mr. McFeely, who was the delivery man who would carry props in and out to Fred’s house.
Mr. McFeely is showing Fred a home movie of his wedding. Then Fred asks Mr. McFeely, “Have you always been happy?” Mr. McFeely replies, “No one is happy all the time, but Betsey and I have had a big share of happiness.” Mr. Rogers the states that, “…some people get married and after a while they are so unhappy with each other that they don’t want to be married anymore.” The conversation continues between Mr. McFeely and Mr. Rogers.
When Mr. McFeely left, Fred Rogers stated that he left in such a hurry; maybe he did not want to talk about his divorce. Mr. Rogers then asks the question, “Did you ever know any grownups who got married and later they got a divorce? Well it is something people can talk about and it’s something important. He then talked about a little girl and boy he knows whose mother and father got a divorce and those children cried and cried, and one reason was that they thought it was their fault, but of course it wasn’t their fault. Things like weddings and having babies and buying houses and cars and getting divorces are all grownup things. Then Mr. Rogers states, “Let’s do something different!” He then goes into the fantasy section by talking about King Friday and Queen Sarah and pretends that two new people stop by to talk with the royal family.
Eliot then tells us that Mr. Rogers’ talk about the King and Queen was his way of transitioning into the Land of Make Believe. This was a way for children to do some of their own playing out of disturbing things.
Mr. Rogers used a lot of video therapy such as field trips to see how the world works, trips to the crayon factory, for one season the program had an opera week; it was a seriously silly opera. There was also a wide array of guests who were new friends for the child.
Fred, being a very musical guy, usually had new musical friends for the children such as Yo Yo Ma, who was a repeat performer, and Wynton Marsalis. He also had Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West. She came on the program as a nice old lady then turned herself into the Wicked Witch of the West, then removed her garb and she was this nice old lady again! This shows a scary character, but it is pretend - showing the differentially between fantasy and reality.
One of Mr. Rogers’ most important guests was Jeff Erlanger a 10 year old quadriplegic who had very limited use of his hands.
Before showing the clip of Mr. Rogers with Jeff, Eliot told us that when he was a a little kid he used to ridicule people with handicaps, he used to make fun of them. He would point his finger and laugh at them- out of fear or I am glad that I am not like them. It was shameful and awful, but it’s not unheard of.
We watched a segment of Mr. Rogers talking to, then singing to Jeff. Jeff has spend about five or six minutes explaining, unbelievably articulely, to Fred why he is confined to a wheelchair - it was a botched spinal operation. Fred bent down to Jeff’s level and asked him if he knows the song that he sings called, “It’s You I like?” Jeff nodded and responded, “uh ha,” Fred said that he would like to sing the song to Jeff and with Jeff. Jeff said, “Sure.”
“It’s you I like, it’s not the things you wear,
It’s not the way you do your hair, but it’s you I like.
The way you are right now (Jeff begins to sing along),
The way down deep in side you, not the things that hide you.
Not your fancy chair, that’s just beside you.
But, it’s you I like, every part of you,
Your skin, your eyes, your feelings, whether old or new.
I hope that you’ll remember, even when you’re feeling blue,
That it’s you I like, it’s you yourself, it’s you
It’s you I like!”
Then Fred Rogers says to Jeff; “It is you I like, Jeff” and Jeff replies, “Thanks!”
Then he says, “And there must be times when you do feel blue!”
Jeff responds, “uh ha”
Fred asks, “What do you do at those times?”
Jeff replies, “Well, it depends.”
Fred asks, “Sometimes do you make up stories or read, or play?”
Jeff, “Yes.”
Fred, “I know that’s what I did when I was a little boy.”
Jeff asked, “Did it help?”
Fred answered, “It did help. Did it help you?“
Jeff, “Yeh.”
Fred, We all have to discover our own ways, don‘t we, of doing things when we‘re blue?”
Jeff, “uh ha.”
Fred, “I’m not feeling blue right now!”
Jeff, “Me neither!”
Fred, “I’m so glad that you came today.”
Jeff, “Thanks!”
Now, what was Fred Rogers really like?
He was a child during the era of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. He was the son of the richest man in Latrobe, Pennsylvania who owned big steel works and lived in a big mansion on the hill. It was a time when every rich family in America put their children under lock and key and Fred was among those children who lived in a gilded environment under lock and key. It was both a curse and a blessing. There were huge blocks of isolation during his preschool years. He did have a very understanding grown up during his growing years, his grandfather who was a very understanding person.
Fred went to Dartmouth College where he was an English major then transferred to Rollins College where he majored in music composition. He graduated in 1951.
When he returned to his parents’ home he saw the Saturday morning cartoons that were being shown on the television and he was discussed by it. It was at that time he thought that through this medium he could do something beneficial.
Eliot now takes us behind the scenes, stating that Mr. Rogers is the ultimate wizzy wig - what you see is what you get! The Fred Rogers that you see on the screen is exact the same guy that you would see sitting right here - exactly the same man. The only thing about Fred Rogers that you cannot discern from watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood is that he is without question the most powerful human being I’ve ever known in my life.
Eliot thinks that Fred was a genius. He understood things that nobody else taught him and that no one understood the way he did. His vision for a new use for television was one to one. He never talked about “all you boys and girls out there in TV land”, it was “you”, second person singular. There were never young children on the set, if they were, Fred would have to divide his attention between the ones right there and the ones at home and that was never going to work. Fred had this intuitive understanding of a child’s inner life.
Eliot stated that Fred’s power came from his complete self possession. He didn’t need your approval he didn’t need anything from you, he owned himself. He was not self centered, he was the farthest thing from an egocentric person. But, because he was satisfied in and with himself he could be here just for you. When he would engage with you it was, “well tell me what’s going on with you?” It did not have to be about Fred. It was kind of ironic that he had no sense of audience, but for most us, we care what our audience thinks of us. On most days 70% of our mind is - “how am I coming across?” But Fred could ignore convention, he did not need to do what people expected him to do. Fred had a phenomenal sense of humor - he enjoyed watching Eddie Murphy’s spoof when he played Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood. Fred also had a monumental spiritual side to him.
Eliot told us that Fred always left people with a parting gift. He never encountered anybody who didn’t go away feeling a little better off then they were when they first encountered him. And that ranged from the silly to the more grand. To give an example of Fred’s humor, Eliot told the story of when he bought a raccoon coat in Vermont for about $2.00. He thought it would be the perfect thing for his wife, Patti, to wear for football games. Patti, being an animal lover, felt exceedingly self conscious wearing the coat so she had a little speech as to how she is not in favor of killing animals.
One snowy night in Pittsburgh Eliot, Patti, Fred and Fred’s wife, Joanne were going out to dinner. When they got out of the car and Patti put the coat around her she began to apologize. Then Fred said, “Patti what’s the life span of a raccoon.” Patti replied, “I don’t know, fifteen or twenty years….” With that Fred stated, “You know, all those raccoon would have been dead by now anyhow, I think you should just enjoy that coat!”
Fred won thousands of awards and about 40 honorary doctorates. One of his last public gestures was when he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Before we watched the segment when the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences gave him the award, Eliot gave us a charge to take the invitation seriously as though he is offering it to us and to participate in it if we are so moved.
We watched the awards program, listened to his acceptance speech and heard him begin by saying, “Oh, it’s a beautiful night in this neighborhood! So many people have helped me to come to this night, some of you are here, some of you are far away, some are even in heaven. All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just along with me take ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. Those who have cared about you and wanted what was best for you in life. Ten seconds of silence - I’ll watch the time.” After looking at his watch for ten seconds he continued. “Whom ever you’ve been thinking about how pleased they must be to know the difference you feel they’ve made. You know, they’re the kind of people television does well to offer our world. Special thanks to my family and friends and to my coworkers in public broadcasting, family communications and this academy for encouraging me, allowing me all these years to be your neighbor. May God be with you.”
Fred Rogers died in 2003 and the next day there blossomed across the editorial pages of dozens of major newspapers across the country editorial cartoons that were so alike that you would have thought there was a midnight phone call of all the editorial cartoonists who would agree on the theme of their editorial cartoons. They were all welcomed to this neighborhood.
Eliot closed by saying that of all the people that he has ever known who have lived and died on this planet, nobody was more deserving of spending his retirement in heaven then Fred Rogers.
Respectfully and joyfully submitted,
Shirley A. Satterfield
INVOCATION: Don Edwards led
MINUTES: Read by Julie Denney Clark
Copies of all minutes are available on the Old Guard website
GUESTS: Hosts: Guests:
Jock McFarlane Maggie Sullivan
Eliot Freeman Marsha Freeman
David Rosenfeld Joan Rosenfeld
Eliot Daley Patti Daley
Chase Hunt Suzanne Hunt
ATTENDENCE: 112
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Ed Weiss made an announcement on behalf of the Membership Committee, Discussed the ballot and biographies of the 16 candidates for membership
- The Old Guard Executive Committee will meet on December 3 at 1:45 in the AK 47 Room of the Nassau Club
- Ties, scarves and lanyards are available from Charlie Clark and Anton Lahnston in the back of the meeting room
- We will meet next week at 10:15 am in our usual quarters, the Convocation Room of the Friend Center. Our speaker will be Deborah Poritz, Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1996 to 2006. Her topic will be: “Judicial Independence and Judicial Activism: Do Courts Make Law?”
- Minute taker was Shirley Satterfield
- Introducer of speaker was Jock McFarlane
WHY “MISTER ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD” WORKED
(And what Fred Rogers was really like…)
We sat anxiously waiting to hear about a time in our life when maybe our children or grandchildren watched Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood! How revealing it was when the Old Guard member, Eliot Daley asked, “…how many of you here in this room, with a show of hands, know what Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood is”? All hands quickly went up! With laughs and a feeling of joy, Eliot decided to flip through the next slide!
He gave an overview of basic facts about Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood:
- It was a children’s TV program
- It Launched in the late 1960’s on PBS for 40 years
- The program was on from Monday through Friday for 30 minutes
- The audience was preschool children primarily from 2 to 5 years old from about 3.8 million homes
Eliot then showed us clips from the show and told us to notice Fred’s songs. He wrote about 200 songs that were centered around the interests of the preschool audience. His songs were a key connection between him and the child.
He wanted us to also notice the music director, Johnny Costa who had a jazz trio. He played the background music. It was the only thing about the program that was ever improvised. He had an extraordinary way of anticipating where Fred was going and where the child would be.
We watched the program of Mr. Rogers come through the door singing his signature song, taking off his coat and putting on his sweater, then zipping it all the way up and then down a little, taking off his shoes, putting on and tying his sneakers. We dusted off our memories, then Eliot asked, “Remember?”
He told us that at the heart of the program was a super computer that had a capacity of 2,000,000 links per second. Everything that was done on the show was processed to and through that computer.
There is no sense in talking about Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood unless you talk about the child. At this point Eliot showed a video of a three year old child looking up questionably with captions of what he might be saying, such as:
- When you and daddy argue, is it my fault?
- Will the doctor’s shot hurt a lot?
- Could I ever get flushed down the toilet?
- Do you love me?
Eliot now takes us in the direction of Entertainment vs. Communication:
- An entertainer does something that he or she is good at; trying to keep you engaged, amused, fascinated, etc. It is all about what he or she can do.
- The focus is on the entertainer’s talent
- Communication is any reduction of uncertainty
- This causes you to focus away from what the person wants to say and think and think about what you want to hear
- Once you understand this, the medium can be anything you want such as a wink or a smile
At Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood two people had jobs:
- Child’s job was to provide the drama; the stuff that is churning in the child such as: sibling rivalry, wondering about death, experiencing pain, fear of the dark, etc.
- Discussion of the Eric Erickson Stages of Psychosocial Development from infant to older adult
- The adult’s job is to facilitate the developmental tasks such as: build trust in others, differentiate reality from fantasy, channel anger, manage conflict, etc.
At this time, Eliot celebrates and gives homage to Margaret McFarland who was the unsung heroine of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. She was a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh where she started a Child Study Center with two colleagues, Benjamin Spock and Erik Erikson. She became an authority on the inner life of a preschool child.
When Eliot and Fred would write scripts for the program, Eliot would go to Margaret’s office to talk about child development. She would then start talking to the point that Eliot was not sure that she understood his question! She would just talk and talk about all kinds of things and after about an hour or an hour and a half all of a sudden all of these threads would come together and Eliot would be standing right inside of a three year old child! Margaret was just masterful in her understanding and masterful in her capacity to not intellectually teach him but to draw him into the world of a child. Having Margaret at their disposal, Eliot and Fred were able to tackle some subjects that other people didn’t.
We viewed the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood segment where he found a lifeless fish at the bottom of the fish tank. He removed the fish with a net and put it in a container with salt water. Mr. Rogers said that he heard if you put a lifeless fish in salt water it might revive it. He put the fish in the salt water but the fish was dead. He then took the fish, wrapped it in a paper towel, took it outside and buried it in the ground. This segment was more than four and a half minutes, addressing the notion that children have short attention spans. Eliot stated that “…short attention spans are entirely tied to the inherit interest or lack of interest in the subject.”
Ground rules are:
- A child will have an attention span for what matters to him or her
- Create a television equivalent of classic children’s literature - books that have been used for generation, after generation, after generation that multiple generations can appreciate
- Give one theme per week
- Be honest about it, if we can’t be honest about it don’t do it
For a number of years they thought that it would be important to do a week on divorce, but they could not figure out a way to do it that would be sufficiently in depth and honest to the reality of divorce for children who were living through divorce or who have experienced divorce, without doing them any harm and at the same time without alarming children in homes where divorce had not happened.
Another segment of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was featuring one of the characters on the program, Speedy Delivery, Mr. McFeely, who was the delivery man who would carry props in and out to Fred’s house.
Mr. McFeely is showing Fred a home movie of his wedding. Then Fred asks Mr. McFeely, “Have you always been happy?” Mr. McFeely replies, “No one is happy all the time, but Betsey and I have had a big share of happiness.” Mr. Rogers the states that, “…some people get married and after a while they are so unhappy with each other that they don’t want to be married anymore.” The conversation continues between Mr. McFeely and Mr. Rogers.
When Mr. McFeely left, Fred Rogers stated that he left in such a hurry; maybe he did not want to talk about his divorce. Mr. Rogers then asks the question, “Did you ever know any grownups who got married and later they got a divorce? Well it is something people can talk about and it’s something important. He then talked about a little girl and boy he knows whose mother and father got a divorce and those children cried and cried, and one reason was that they thought it was their fault, but of course it wasn’t their fault. Things like weddings and having babies and buying houses and cars and getting divorces are all grownup things. Then Mr. Rogers states, “Let’s do something different!” He then goes into the fantasy section by talking about King Friday and Queen Sarah and pretends that two new people stop by to talk with the royal family.
Eliot then tells us that Mr. Rogers’ talk about the King and Queen was his way of transitioning into the Land of Make Believe. This was a way for children to do some of their own playing out of disturbing things.
Mr. Rogers used a lot of video therapy such as field trips to see how the world works, trips to the crayon factory, for one season the program had an opera week; it was a seriously silly opera. There was also a wide array of guests who were new friends for the child.
Fred, being a very musical guy, usually had new musical friends for the children such as Yo Yo Ma, who was a repeat performer, and Wynton Marsalis. He also had Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West. She came on the program as a nice old lady then turned herself into the Wicked Witch of the West, then removed her garb and she was this nice old lady again! This shows a scary character, but it is pretend - showing the differentially between fantasy and reality.
One of Mr. Rogers’ most important guests was Jeff Erlanger a 10 year old quadriplegic who had very limited use of his hands.
Before showing the clip of Mr. Rogers with Jeff, Eliot told us that when he was a a little kid he used to ridicule people with handicaps, he used to make fun of them. He would point his finger and laugh at them- out of fear or I am glad that I am not like them. It was shameful and awful, but it’s not unheard of.
We watched a segment of Mr. Rogers talking to, then singing to Jeff. Jeff has spend about five or six minutes explaining, unbelievably articulely, to Fred why he is confined to a wheelchair - it was a botched spinal operation. Fred bent down to Jeff’s level and asked him if he knows the song that he sings called, “It’s You I like?” Jeff nodded and responded, “uh ha,” Fred said that he would like to sing the song to Jeff and with Jeff. Jeff said, “Sure.”
“It’s you I like, it’s not the things you wear,
It’s not the way you do your hair, but it’s you I like.
The way you are right now (Jeff begins to sing along),
The way down deep in side you, not the things that hide you.
Not your fancy chair, that’s just beside you.
But, it’s you I like, every part of you,
Your skin, your eyes, your feelings, whether old or new.
I hope that you’ll remember, even when you’re feeling blue,
That it’s you I like, it’s you yourself, it’s you
It’s you I like!”
Then Fred Rogers says to Jeff; “It is you I like, Jeff” and Jeff replies, “Thanks!”
Then he says, “And there must be times when you do feel blue!”
Jeff responds, “uh ha”
Fred asks, “What do you do at those times?”
Jeff replies, “Well, it depends.”
Fred asks, “Sometimes do you make up stories or read, or play?”
Jeff, “Yes.”
Fred, “I know that’s what I did when I was a little boy.”
Jeff asked, “Did it help?”
Fred answered, “It did help. Did it help you?“
Jeff, “Yeh.”
Fred, We all have to discover our own ways, don‘t we, of doing things when we‘re blue?”
Jeff, “uh ha.”
Fred, “I’m not feeling blue right now!”
Jeff, “Me neither!”
Fred, “I’m so glad that you came today.”
Jeff, “Thanks!”
Now, what was Fred Rogers really like?
He was a child during the era of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. He was the son of the richest man in Latrobe, Pennsylvania who owned big steel works and lived in a big mansion on the hill. It was a time when every rich family in America put their children under lock and key and Fred was among those children who lived in a gilded environment under lock and key. It was both a curse and a blessing. There were huge blocks of isolation during his preschool years. He did have a very understanding grown up during his growing years, his grandfather who was a very understanding person.
Fred went to Dartmouth College where he was an English major then transferred to Rollins College where he majored in music composition. He graduated in 1951.
When he returned to his parents’ home he saw the Saturday morning cartoons that were being shown on the television and he was discussed by it. It was at that time he thought that through this medium he could do something beneficial.
Eliot now takes us behind the scenes, stating that Mr. Rogers is the ultimate wizzy wig - what you see is what you get! The Fred Rogers that you see on the screen is exact the same guy that you would see sitting right here - exactly the same man. The only thing about Fred Rogers that you cannot discern from watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood is that he is without question the most powerful human being I’ve ever known in my life.
Eliot thinks that Fred was a genius. He understood things that nobody else taught him and that no one understood the way he did. His vision for a new use for television was one to one. He never talked about “all you boys and girls out there in TV land”, it was “you”, second person singular. There were never young children on the set, if they were, Fred would have to divide his attention between the ones right there and the ones at home and that was never going to work. Fred had this intuitive understanding of a child’s inner life.
Eliot stated that Fred’s power came from his complete self possession. He didn’t need your approval he didn’t need anything from you, he owned himself. He was not self centered, he was the farthest thing from an egocentric person. But, because he was satisfied in and with himself he could be here just for you. When he would engage with you it was, “well tell me what’s going on with you?” It did not have to be about Fred. It was kind of ironic that he had no sense of audience, but for most us, we care what our audience thinks of us. On most days 70% of our mind is - “how am I coming across?” But Fred could ignore convention, he did not need to do what people expected him to do. Fred had a phenomenal sense of humor - he enjoyed watching Eddie Murphy’s spoof when he played Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood. Fred also had a monumental spiritual side to him.
Eliot told us that Fred always left people with a parting gift. He never encountered anybody who didn’t go away feeling a little better off then they were when they first encountered him. And that ranged from the silly to the more grand. To give an example of Fred’s humor, Eliot told the story of when he bought a raccoon coat in Vermont for about $2.00. He thought it would be the perfect thing for his wife, Patti, to wear for football games. Patti, being an animal lover, felt exceedingly self conscious wearing the coat so she had a little speech as to how she is not in favor of killing animals.
One snowy night in Pittsburgh Eliot, Patti, Fred and Fred’s wife, Joanne were going out to dinner. When they got out of the car and Patti put the coat around her she began to apologize. Then Fred said, “Patti what’s the life span of a raccoon.” Patti replied, “I don’t know, fifteen or twenty years….” With that Fred stated, “You know, all those raccoon would have been dead by now anyhow, I think you should just enjoy that coat!”
Fred won thousands of awards and about 40 honorary doctorates. One of his last public gestures was when he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Before we watched the segment when the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences gave him the award, Eliot gave us a charge to take the invitation seriously as though he is offering it to us and to participate in it if we are so moved.
We watched the awards program, listened to his acceptance speech and heard him begin by saying, “Oh, it’s a beautiful night in this neighborhood! So many people have helped me to come to this night, some of you are here, some of you are far away, some are even in heaven. All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just along with me take ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. Those who have cared about you and wanted what was best for you in life. Ten seconds of silence - I’ll watch the time.” After looking at his watch for ten seconds he continued. “Whom ever you’ve been thinking about how pleased they must be to know the difference you feel they’ve made. You know, they’re the kind of people television does well to offer our world. Special thanks to my family and friends and to my coworkers in public broadcasting, family communications and this academy for encouraging me, allowing me all these years to be your neighbor. May God be with you.”
Fred Rogers died in 2003 and the next day there blossomed across the editorial pages of dozens of major newspapers across the country editorial cartoons that were so alike that you would have thought there was a midnight phone call of all the editorial cartoonists who would agree on the theme of their editorial cartoons. They were all welcomed to this neighborhood.
Eliot closed by saying that of all the people that he has ever known who have lived and died on this planet, nobody was more deserving of spending his retirement in heaven then Fred Rogers.
Respectfully and joyfully submitted,
Shirley A. Satterfield