Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 20, 1993 TAG: 9304200091
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN ENGSTROM SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
When he received an honorary degree at Boston University graduation ceremonies, the cap-and-gowners broke into spontaneous song: "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine? ..."
Rogers performs miracles even with grumpy TV critics.
At a recent gathering of critics in Los Angeles, the room was becalmed by Rogers' voice, soft as a blankie, sweet as a baby's sigh, slow-paced as a mother's wish for the years she will spend with her child.
To critics, everyone else is a first-namer, "Delta" or "Roseanne," "Johnny" or "Jay." But at this session, a journalist opened the Q-and-A session with: "Mister Rogers?"
No one else on television has had as long and as meaningful an impact on the people of America.
Johnny Carson has more longevity, finishing his "Tonight" show run at 30 years. But Carson's show never taught countless children about loving and being loved, about sadness and fears, about confidence and joy, about being special.
This season, 25 years after he began on PBS, Fred Rogers is watched by 6 million people a week - kids and their adult companions, over morning bowls of cereal or afternoon cracker snacks, at day-care centers, in foster homes, in bare-walled shelters, wherever there is a child and a set.
Other kids' shows come and go, often without notice from Rogers.
"I don't watch television very much," he said, "... but from what I hear and what I read, to put it mildly, all of television that is aimed for children really isn't in their best interests."
Rogers' messages reach kids because they are precisely modeled for children in countless nuances and delivered so intimately that youngsters talk back to the set when Rogers asks a question.
There always seems to be a tale of value when Rogers talks.
During his session with the TV critics, he received a PBS gift of a crystal apple for "planting the seeds to help children grow."' Rogers read the inscription. "Gee, that's beautiful," he said. "Reminds me of my dad. My dad loved to plant seeds."
That started Rogers on a lovely little story about how his father would take a dollar or two worth of pennies with him when the family left home in Pennsylvania to visit New York City.
"And as we would walk along the streets, the sidewalks of New York, he would put pennies on windowsills," Rogers said. "And it just dawned on me that that was like planting seeds. I said, `Dad, why do you do that?' And he said, `I just like to think about the people who find them.' "
Like his father's pennies, the episodes of Rogers' show - and often his personal life - touch many minds, from humble to high.
Rogers talks down to no one. He will tell you that everyone he encounters is a gift in some way. He easily held his own on "The Arsenio Hall Show," with the self-styled king of the hip. He also took time to answer a parent request and visit Bob Samms, a Pittsburgh teen-ager who was one of the early liver-transplant patients.
"Over a period of several months we got to be friends, really able to talk about practically anything," Rogers recalled. After the boy's third transplant, the weakened youth stopped talking. Rogers Family and friends feared he was shutting down, preparing to die.
"I somehow didn't sense that," Rogers said, "because I kept noticing this twinkle in his eye as I talked to him. He looked satisfied somehow about his not talking. And slowly it dawned on me that here was Bob Samms, who was completely dependent on doctors, nurses and machines. In fact, about the only thing he had control of was his talking. And he was making the most of controlling that.
"Before Bob died, he did talk to some of us and he thanked us for loving him all along the way, even when it all seemed like such a mistake. It was obvious to me that he was way beyond us by then. He was very close to heaven."
Rogers is the first to tell you he's far from heavenly perfect himself, despite his public image. But he's closer than many of us.
"I do get angry," he said in answer to a question. "I get angry when I see people being demeaned. I have ways of dealing with my anger, which I try to pass on to children because most children are very fearful of their anger. Playing the piano, for me, is one way."
His answer to a follow-up query was far shorter: "No, I don't shout. I found that I don't have to."
"Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" airs 3 p.m. weekdays on WBRA (Channel 15).
by CNB