Thinking on Mr. Rogers

I was too old to watch Mr. Rogers when he began his something like 30 year run on Public Television. I think he began his Mr. Roger's Neighborhood in about 1968, when I was already a teenager. I was of the Romper Room and Captain Kangaroo generation.



I was always aware of the quiet, simple presentation of his show, and when he was on the air, he was subject of satire. He was a slight man. He spoke in clear, but very soft tones. He had no interest in competition or the usual trappings of success. A society like ours has long been distrustful of anyone who seems to be well. . . .good. His show has been re-run and new little ones have had the opportunity to escape, if only for a half hour or so, the realities the adult world imposes on them. And Mr. Rogers seems to have been a very different adult from the general species.

That's why I find myself worrying about Mr. Rogers a little. Some 15 year after his death, there is renewed interest in him. There have been short documentaries, like one you can see on YouTube or the like, called "Mr. Rogers and Me". Then there is a longer theatrical documentary that is going to be released in the summer and the most recent announcement is that Tom Hanks is going to play him in a biographical release of some sort. At the moment, Mr. Rogers has been given a kind of secular sainthood.

But that's what triggers the worry. I have never known the media or human beings generally not to seek the chink in any hero or heroine's armor. There is almost a game in it--build the person up, write glowing things for a long time, and then, one day, a rumor, and then a snippet in a paper or on the net, and then an investigative story that takes the shine from any character. It isn't always true, but once the whiff of scandal is in the air, truth becomes irrelevant. Salacious sells and comforts the rest of us that no one can be THAT good.

More than anything, maybe because I have watched interviews with Mr. Rogers and seen many clips of his show since I heard about the new movie with Mr. Hanks that is pending, I have felt what I think the children and their parents have felt for years upon end, as I watch him, a sense of peace and a delight that there are people who not only have no agenda, but who might truly be models for the rest of us.

I would like Mr. Rogers to survive the scrutiny that will likely descend upon him, though he is in earthly repose, and hopefully in celestial joy, when both documentary and movie are released.

I want the shine to survive the human need to detract and reduce. Maybe this time the crown of secular sainthood will be undisturbed.