I just learned that today - March 20 - is "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Day, on which everyone is asked to wear their favorite sweater.
As a child, I called Mr. Rogers "Mr. Shodos" (which I think meant Mr. Shoulders - not that it makes any more sense) and watched his show regularly. I was especially fond of the cable car, living as I did in San Francisco - and those puppets had an intense hold on me.
I wear sweaters - some frumpy, some stylish, but none covered with cat hair - almost every single day. To prove it, my colleague Maureen took this picture of me today.
Mr. Rogers, I love you.
I heard that the day after Christmas (or maybe New Year's Day), Mr. Rogers' family would gather, and each member would pick out a sweater pattern, and then the matriarch (I can't remember whether it was Mr. Rogers' wife or mother) would knit up the sweaters as Christmas presents for that year. Pretty adorable, huh?
ReplyDeleteBut the hand-knit sweaters are just the tip of Mr. Rogers' charm iceberg. "Charm" is maybe the wrong word, because it tends to convey some sort of artifice. Mr. Rogers was about as sincere as it gets. I heard a clip of an interview with him afer he died, where the interviewer asked something to the effect of "Aren't you kind of wimpy?" And Mr. Rogers quietly explained that the best thing you can give to a child is yourself, and he just tried to be himself for children. What a wonderful sentiment...
Aawww! Now I love him even more...
ReplyDelete