Today on the radio I hears Mr. Fred Rogers died of cancer. He was 74 years old and a minister ( didn t know that?) and OF COURSE host of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood [:)] . He s been around on TV for 30 or so years! Pretty amazing! My DS piped up and said, " I learned how shoes are made on his show" [:o] Oh well - pretty sad for me - a piece of my childhood!
I said, " this time it s true" because a few months ago there was a rumor that he died. I e-mailed PBS to see if there was any truth to it because I hadn t heard anything and they replied back that he was just fine. Obviously this was not true if he was dying of cancer. I don t think it was public knowledge though-not something you want the whole world to know.[:(]
Acts 2:38 girlI always thought he was a little odd myself.. [&:] I mean how many shoes did that dude have in his closet??
Acts 2:38 girlHEY NOW--firefyter, i`ve always thought pretty highly of you and others in your profession, BUT, don`t you EVEN go dissen MY MR.ROGERS [:@]
that man was sooo genuinely GOOD, such a big heart, i truly cried this morning when i heard the news, and i know God has a great friend sitting at his feet tonight.
Firefyter-EmtI guess I missed out on something, but even as a young child, I didn t want to be his neighbor, something just a little different about that guy.
Acts 2:38 girlI always " thought" he was a little different, but I think now that was just ME influenced by our culture! Isn t it sad that a good, decent, loving man can be " judged" as different in our society??? I pray for his family and friends.
Acts 2:38 girlI don t post much on here as you might see, but just had to post this reply.
I think the problem that we all have here is that Mr. Rogers was genuine, honest, loving and cared about everyone. You don t find this in today s society, I guess that s why I take offense to the reply s that have been written. Too bad there are not more people like Mr. Rogers in the world today, if there was it would sure be a better place to live.
I m glad my children grew up and enjoyed his shows. Even when my father passed away Mr. Rogers helped my children to understand death and grieving through literature/videos my children who were only 7 and 3 at the time.
" Thank you Mister Rogers, you will indeed be missed by me and my children" . [:(]
Acts 2:38 girlYes, I agree with camper4pack. I am guilty of it too. Mr. Rogers and Barney both annoy me a little. It s probably because they set such a high standard for decency irreguardless of their quirky mannerisms and style.
Acts 2:38 girlI can agree with Camper4pack and to an extent Gamecock (Barney annoys me a WHOLE lot[: (])....Mr Roger was (IMHO) the genuine article. If we re reading/writing on this thread....he wasn t about us, as adults. He put himself on a level and understanding with children that few can ever realize. Remember Pee Wee Herman? He made a lot of money by being a knock-off and his later life proved that he was as genuine as a three dollar bill. Kids could relate to Mr. Rogers, he didn t violate that. Is this day and age, that s a rare commodity.
Sorry, I ll yield the soapbox now.....
Acts 2:38 girlyeah!!![:D] i totally agree!!! how can anyone be ANNOYED by someone as sweet as him? Mr. Rogers promoted honest, decent living. pure and simple. nothing more, nothing less. He showed everyone to slowwwwww down the fast-paced rat race of our society and to enjoy our families and our neighbors. oh, i agree that many adults in this world are totally the opposite, runrunrun, and when you have come to the end of the road,so to speak, i wonder- do they ask theirselves, " was there a better way" ? imagine all that one can miss along the way if you rush through life.Don`t get me wrong, there have been many times when i myself was so wrapped up in my own interest that i completely missed out on what was going on in my own families` lives, but as quickly as i would sit down with my kids and hear the opening music, it seemed i relaxed, took a deep breath, and smiled, and was grateful for the time i would spend with them, watching as he helped me to remember what was truly the most important thing in my life. i for one am VERY proud to say that i watched Mr. Rogers as a child, i watched him with my children, and i watched him with my grandchildren. I will continue to do this through re-runs, of course, and will gladly stand up and say, Thank You Mr. Rogers, for showing me and mine a beautiful example of how to truly be a good neighbor, for you were a benefit to us, and at the end of my life, if anyone can say that about me, i will have done well. [:)]
Acts 2:38 girlI admire anyone that promotes love, respect, caring and understanding. My kids loved Mr. Rogers. His gentleness and kindness came through in everything he did. Being an ordained minister, his love for God also showed (in a wonderful non-denominational way) and THAT I admire most-he did not put his beliefs aside to be more " politically correct" .
We ve lost a treasure.
Acts 2:38 girlUs Canadian s went through this last year when Mr.Dressup (Ernie Combs) passed away. Mr. Dressup has his 30 year career started by Mr. Rogers, they were both wonderul men and spoke to children not at children. I grew up watching the original Mr. Dressup and Mr. Rogers and I m not ashamed to say I really loved both men! My children are watching the reruns and think they are both great!
I wish we still had such sincer, kind hearted men that enjoyed teaching and entertaining as they both did. No we have Steve from Blue s Clues who can only last a few short years than pass his torch onto his brother Joe so Steve can go do what he really wants to do!
Tammy
Acts 2:38 girlHe had to be one of the most genuinely kind people out there. I watched him when I was little and watched him again with my DS. He made such a spectacular effort to teach children to be positvely aware of life, to wonder at the simpliest of things and to be proud of their achievements great and small. Not many people are willing to dedicate their lives to reaching out to children(PBS ran his show from 1968 to 2001, and he reached out often beyond just his show).
I hope my children s children have as wonderful a person to see and learn from one day.
Mr. Rogers, we ll miss you, and we so appreciate how you helped us to see how special we are and how wonderful our neighborhood can be! Thank you.
Acts 2:38 girlThis is one person that had to have died peacefully, with no worries of whether or not he lived his life as God wanted him to live it, and knowing that he did what he could do to make the world a better place.
In a world with such cartoon characters as Beavis and Butthead and the Simpsons that many kids " learn" from, Mr Rogers was a special person indeed!
Acts 2:38 girlMr. Roger s target audience was (and with 900 re-runs will still be) 2yrs old to 6 yrs old. I could understand why adults would not be able to relate to him but oh what values he hungered to instill in those precious minds! He always played them straight with teaching them AT THEIR level but without masking the truth. He even made the parents take notice at times of crisis in our country and asked them to be honest all the while instilling security in their little lives.
To tell you the truth ANYONE who strives to be real, honest and live what they believe is probably NOT the norm when it comes to TV personalities as personified by the current spate of actor/actors. Mr. Rogers will be truly missed here but I am sure that all of Heaven is happy to have him now. God Bless that kind man!
Acts 2:38 girlWell I grew up on Captain Kangaroo and his sidekick, Mr. Greenjeans. Never once did I think of them as odd or wierd. Those were the days when you didnt lock cars or homes and the employees of grocery stores and banks knew you by first name and even asked about your family. Neighbors knew each other by names and even socialized with one another. We would ride our bikes a mile to a friends house, by ourselves. Today we tell our children not to talk to strangers who could even be our neighbors. Though my kids didnt watch Mr. Rogers, his values, gentle and kind nature are unfamiliar and often considered suspicious to many of todays children and parents. How sad is that? It seems that if it isnt a friendly monster, a puppet or an animated being today then it cant be good for our children. In my opinion, nothing beats a friendly face and kind words. And teletubbies arent wierd?
Hi neighbor, Bye neighbor, you will be missed.
Acts 2:38 girlNot my words but somehow appropriate. Mr. Rodgers will be missed in our neighborhood!
Do you remember ?
My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread Mayo on the same
cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn t seem to get
food poisoning.
My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it
raw sometimes too, but I can t remember getting E-coli.
Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead
of a pristine pool (talk about boring), the term cell phone would have
conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.
We all took gym, not PE ... and risked permanent injury with a pair of hightop Ked s (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can t recall
any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now. Flunking gym was not an option ... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.
Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson by running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we be today if we only knew we could have sued the
schoolsystem.
Speaking of school, we all said the pledge and staying in detention
after school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had
horribly damaged psyches.
I can t understand it. Schools didn t offer 14 year olds an abortion
or condoms (we wouldn t have known what either was anyway) but they did
give us a couple of baby aspirin and cough syrup if we started getting the sniffles.
What an archaic health system we had then.
Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.
I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.
I just can t recall how bored we were without computers, PlayStation, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital cable stations.
I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers could have befallen us as we trekked off each day about
a mile down the road to some guy s vacant 20, built forts out of
branches andpieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us
play on that lot. He should have been locked up for not putting up a fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an infrared
intruder alarm.
Oh yeah ... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I
got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant
construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent bottle of mercurochrome and then we got our butt spanked. Now it s a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle
of antibiotics and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
We didn t act up at the neighbor s house either because if we did, we
got our butt spanked (physical abuse) here too ... and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids choked
down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka truck (remember why Tonka trucks were made tough ... it wasn t so that they could take
the rough Berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.
Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I am sure that
I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we went on two week vacations.
I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they put us in when
we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent.
Summers were spent behind the push lawnmower and I didn t even know
that mowers came with motors until I was 13 and we got one without an
automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive.
How sick were my parents? Of course my parents weren t the only
psychos. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his
tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that
she could have owned our house. Instead she picked him up and swatted him
for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.
To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that we needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn t
even notice that the entire country wasn t taking Prozac!
How did we survive?
Aaron
Acts 2:38 girlAMEN... Aaron!!!!
Acts 2:38 girlA really cute tribute to Mr. Rogers in political cartoons http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/MrRogers/main.asp
Acts 2:38 girlMike - those were awesome!
I guess we can look at the past from any perspective, better or worse. I don t want to get down on our society today, because THIS is the time I have to raise my children. Our kids don t have to wory about things we did as children, and visa-versa. I m sure if we think hard enough we can remember our parents/grandparents complaining about " kids today" back in the 50 s and 60 s. During this glorified time in our childhood, they thought it wasn t so great either! Just because Mr. Rogers died, doesn t mean a whole way of life has gone by! There is always someone else to step up to the place and carry on. And besides, our kids have something that we never had as children - Mr. Rogers re-runs!! I could get really down on our society if I wanted to, but how does that benefit my children and neighbors? I think what we really miss about our childhood is the innocents of it all! No real knowledge of stress, bills, work, perversion, responsibilities,evil, etc. We knew of these things, but (most of us) had no first hand knowledge. THAT is what I miss about being a kid! [;)] Summer vacation! Faking sick days - birthday parties - Christmas! That s what s so great about having kids - being able to glimps at it one more time!