Mr. Rogers Appreciation Thread

[TraceOneInfinite]

"It's such a good feeling, to know your alive
it's such a happy feeling, you're growing inside
and when you wake up in the morning and say
I think I'll make it a snappy, new day" 

The Great Mr. Rogers

I had a few bad things happen to me over this last summer and it made me reflect a lot over when my life got off track because I'm still living with the consequences up to this day.

As a teacher now I'm interested in people like Mr. Rogers.   He's one of the greatest educational and child development teachers of history.  And like every other 80's kid, of course I spent a lot of hours watching him as a very small child, because we didn't even have cable first few years of my life.  That meant we only actually had about 4 stations on the television.  Crazy to think how much times have changed.  So with only 4 channels, of course 80's kids spent a lot of time watching Mr. Rogers.  And so re-watching him now brings back a lot of memories and I can actually remember how I was as little as 3 and 4 years old; and Mr. Rodgers helps me recall how I changed as I got older and how things got off track for me.  Because Mr. Rogers can be summed up in one word -- WHOLESOME.  He's like the most wholesome guy you will ever see regularly on television.   He was very slow and methodical, and a very old guy relating to very small children.  And yet we all loved him as small children.

Yet... I notice when my life started going off track I started think a guy like Mr. Rogers was boring.  It pains me to say that I took him for nothing more than a square; or even worse than that as a phony.  I lumped him in with the sort of "Bible Thumpers" and church going types I strangely held so much anger for as I started to get older and into my teens.  They were like the enemy to me.  Can you imagine a kid being so screwed up that a wholesome and good man who is trying to reach very small children whose parents just leave them and ignore them, and sit them in front of the television, that he cared about these kids and didn't want them to get lost, and thought television might be a way to save them and an oppurtunity to teach them how special they were and that someone (Mr. Rogers) truly care about them.  So imagine thinking that Mr. Rogers is the bad guy?  That's how screwed up I was.

I thought he was weak, but now I see the strength it took for that guy to be a decent man, and a good man; living in a very corrupt and angry world.  He remained a nice man with a good heart in spite of it all; and he showed small children whose parents just stuck them in front of the television how to live a good and decent life and be a decent towards their neighbors to make the world a loving place that you would want to live in. 

[Sccit]

THE OG OF ALL OGS

MY OLDEST SON FUX WIT MR ROGERS TOO