It may rain in the neighborhood but that's ok

My good friend Daniel Knox and I are both fans of Mr. Rogers. If all goes as planned we're going to have a celebration of Mr. Rogers life on Febuary 27 2007, the four year anniversary of his passing away. While doing research on Fred Rogers I began listening to an interview he did on The Diane Rehm Show in 2002.

Diane Rehm is a slow talker, similiar to Mr. Rogers. Her voice is fragile and sounds even weaker when filtered through RealPlayer. The host and her guest together is an odd pairing. Imagine an ordinary interview on WBEZ played at half-speed. Anyways, Mr. Rogers is an excellent guest. Mrs. Rehm asks her guest about his characters in the Land of Make Believe and Mr. Rogers presents some of them. The second half of the show is for calls. No one calls with a question. Mother after mother give accounts of how Mr. Rogers has helped them raise their children. The second caller had me in tears.

I used to ridicule my mother because of her love for Mr. Rogers. At 10 years old I didn't want to hear some old guy sing songs. At 23 I want to hear some old guy sing songs.

Things don't seem so bad with Mr. Rogers. He never shied away from difficult issues. Anger was a common theme on his show and there were multiple special episodes that dealt with death, divorce, war, murder and more. It's all going to be ok and if Mr. Rogers believed it, I'll believe it too.