He wears an undershirt, of course, but no matter—soon that's gone, too, as is the belt, as are the beige trousers, until his undershorts stand as the last impediment to his nakedness. 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." 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. The first time I called Mister Rogers on the telephone, I woke him up from his nap. If you ask me, those are the best kind of heroes. "Thanks, my dear," he said to me, then turned back to Deb. Where is Fred?" Look at us—I've just met you, but I'm investing in who you are and who you will be, and I can't help it. This article was the basis for the plot of the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Once upon a time, you see, I lost something, and prayed to get it back, but when I lost it the second time, I didn't, and now this was it, the missing word, the unuttered promise, the prayer I'd been waiting to say a very long time. Come and listen, if you can. 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. If you are a 7-day subscriber, you may enjoy all of our valuable local news and information at no extra charge; you simply need to set up an online account. Yes, it should be easy being Mister Rogers, but when four o'clock rolls around, well, Mister Rogers is tired, and so he sneaks over to the piano and starts playing, with dexterous, pale fingers, the music that used to end a 1940s newsreel and that has now become the music he plays to signal to the cast and crew that a day's taping has wrapped. And so that's what I told him. You were a child once, too. The first time I met Mister Rogers, he told me a story of how deeply his simple gestures had been felt, and received. "Oh, hello, my dear," he said when he picked it up, and then he said that he had a visitor, someone who wanted to learn more about the Neighborhood. July 15, 2018. "Look at us—I've just met you, but I'm investing in who you are and who you will be, and I can't help it." When he was your age, he had a rabbit, too, and he loved it very much. She was very pretty. He came home to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, once upon a time, and his parents, because they were wealthy, had bought something new for the corner room of their big redbrick house. Because Mister Rogers is such a busy man, however, he could not write the chapter himself, and he asked a woman who worked for him to write it instead. A definition of a hero to an old grandparent is different to that of a teen member of a gang. Then he took off his shoes and put on a pair of sneakers. A hero can be someone who gave up his or her life so another could live. Once upon a time, a man named Fred Rogers decided that he wanted to live in heaven. ", The next afternoon, I went to his office in Pittsburgh. "Welcome, Tom," he said with a slight bow, and bade me follow him inside, where he lay down—no, stretched out, as though he had known me all his life—on a couch upholstered with gold velveteen. Once upon a time, a man named Fred Rogers decided that he wanted to live in heaven. A hero can be as a result of one or more heroic deeds that leaves a lasting impression to the society. "Oh, Mister Rogers, would you please just hug me?" Once upon a time, Mister Rogers went to New York City and got caught in the rain. He would grow up to become a great prayer, this little boy, but only intermittently, only fitfully, praying only when fear and desperation drove him to it, and the night he threw Old Rabbit into the darkness was the night that set the pattern, the night that taught him how. No one would ever guess that he’s actually a superhero in disguise. “He’s my hero.” There was another pause. Its name was Old Rabbit. Did you have a special friend like that, Tom? His name was Fred Rogers. "Do you think we can go in?" Of course, she knew who Mister Rogers was, because she had grown up with him, and she knew that he was good for her son, and so now, with her little boy zombie-eyed under his blond bangs, she apologized, saying to Mister Rogers that she knew he was in a rush and that she knew he was here in Penn Station taping his program and that her son usually wasn't like this, he was probably just tired…. At first, the boy was made very nervous by the thought that Mister Rogers was visiting him. Nearly every morning of his life, Mister Rogers has gone swimming, and now, here he is, standing in a locker room, seventy years old and as white as the Easter Bunny, rimed with frost wherever he has hair, gnawed pink in the spots where his dry skin has gone to flaking, slightly wattled at the neck, slightly stooped at the shoulder, slightly sunken in the chest, slightly curvy at the hips, slightly pigeoned at the toes, slightly aswing at the fine bobbing nest of himself… and yet when he speaks, it is in that voice, his voice, the famous one, the unmistakable one, the televised one, the voice dressed in sweater and sneakers, the soft one, the reassuring one, the curious and expository one, the sly voice that sounds adult to the ears of children and childish to the ears of adults, and what he says, in the midst of all his bobbing nudity, is as understated as it is obvious: "Well, Tom, I guess you've already gotten a deeper glimpse into my daily routine than most people have.". And here, as he made his way through thickets of bewildered workmen—this skinny old man dressed in a gray suit and a bow tie, with his hands on his hips and his arms akimbo, like a dance instructor—there was some kind of wiggly jazz in his legs, and he went flying all around the outside of the house, pointing at windows, saying there was the room where he learned to play the piano, and there was the room where he saw the pie fight on a primitive television, and there was the room where his beloved father died…until finally we reached the front door. You don’t have to go to great lengths by risking your life to make a difference in someone else’s life. Koko watches Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and when Mister Rogers, in his sweater and sneakers, entered the place where she lives, Koko immediately folded him in her long, black arms, as though he were a child, and then … "She took my shoes off, Tom," Mister Rogers said. And probably the kind of guy you married too. and Fred, he's a hundred yards away, in his sneakers and his purple sweater, and the only thing anyone sees of him is his gray head bobbing up and down amid all the other heads, the hundreds of them, the thousands, the millions, disappearing into the city and its swelter. View Article Pages. Article by Esquire Magazine. "Would you lead us? It was a television. The ophthalmologists did not want to scare children, so they asked Mister Rogers for help, and Mister Rogers agreed to write a chapter for a book the ophthalmologists were putting together—a chapter about what other ophthalmologists could do to calm the children who came to their offices. ", "Oh, please, sister," Mister Rogers says. He wanted to tell children that what starts out little can sometimes become big, and so that could devote themselves to little dreams without feeling bad about them. 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