| So Long, Neighbor |
3 March 2003
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Fred Rogers Passes on at 74
Fred Rogers, better known to 30+ years of North American children as Mr. Rogers of the TV show "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood", succumbed to stomach cancer over the week-end at the age of 74. Fred Rogers was an almost laughably nice man and target of pre-adolescent insults who will be sorely missed for the corny values he embodied.
Yes, Fred Rogers was the butt of many jokes. As an ordained Presbyterian minister, vegetarian, wearer of those sweaters and unfashionable sneakers, that might have been his legacy. Except that he was genuine. Few can say that in any age, let alone this one. Mr. Rogers put on a show that was low-tech (sock puppets in the 1990s for God's sake!), and talked to children the way they used to be talked to by a neighbor, back when American kids grew up in neighborhoods instead of housing developments.
There was no merchandising of Fred Rogers, no toys that tied into the show, no Mr. Rogers Live, no Land of Make Believe videos. Just half an hour on public TV set aside for the little kids where a grown-up would treat them like people, little people, but people. After the Al-Qaeda attacks on America, PBS brought him out of retirement to help talk to kids about the new world they were inheriting. No one else was trusted to get the message across.
Fred Rogers was not necessarily the sort of man one hopes one's son grows to be, but he was the sort one hopes every man's son meets. The world is short one gentle soul, and one gentleman.