Everybodies neighbor

Every city has someone that they are proud to call there own... it might be a sports figure or an actress or even a US President that is that cities claim to fame. Pittsburgh has those kind of people too but it also has one of the greatest men I wish I had gotten to meet... Mister Rogers....

 Now, I don't know if it was because I spent a chunk of my childhood near Pittsburgh, or if it simply came down to it was just something I loved to watch... but for me Mister Rogers and his land of make believe was a very big part of my growing up. I can remember learning about music, and getting to "meet" great singers and musicians. I can remember watching him feed the fish and thinking how wonderful it was for him to have that in his house. I can also remember learning how things like wagons and teddy bears were made. My favorite memory tho is when he went to the Crayola factory and showed us how crayons were made. I remember it so brilliantly, tho colors melting and swirling and the mass amount of colorful crayons that were created. Perhaps that's where my love of crayons come from, who knows. To this day, I still have my own box of crayons that I won't let the girls use! :) Not to worry, they have their own collection of colors! :)

It saddens me to think that there is a whole generation of kids missing out on his life lessons, and that someone somewhere thinks his lessons aren't very relevant today. His shows aren't on everyday like they used to be and that is such a tragedy. His kind of life lessons will never go out of date and every child that has ever seen his show is nothing but a better person for having seen it. I have tried very hard to make him very real and alive for my girls. They actually just found out a few months ago that he had passed away... they never knew that he was gone before they were even born! We have watched the shows as much as we can now that they are limited and harder to find and I honestly wondered if I had made a big enough of a deal about him for them to really get how great of a guy he was....

On our recent trip to Pittsburgh, one of our goals of the trip was to find the Mister Rogers display in the airport. I had talked about it for weeks and the girls had agreed that they wanted to find it too but I wasn't really sure how "exciting" it would be for them.... boy was I wrong!! As we left the very cool toy store in the airport, we asked for directions to the display and were told they were actually talking about taking it out of the airport.... another shame on them moments if you ask me! So the girls and I set off to find this display (which is near the indoor playground in case you were wondering) and then we saw it.... in the shape of King Friday's castle.... standing there in all its glory. On one side there was a screen with info on it and then the girls turned the corner of it and all I heard was loud screeching! They had found his shoes and sweater and through the squeels, giggles and jumping up and down I really thought they might pee their pants from excitement!! :) We took a number of pictures and I finally had to tell them to calm down because the pictures were coming out blurry! lol It was then I knew that I had done something right, they knew what a big deal it was to see this great man's sweater in person.... and I knew then that he would never really be gone. He will never be gone as long as there are people to tell his story and share his work.

So, for now, I will just keep on showing them his shows on Amazon and keep playing his record (my very favorite record in my collection) and hope that his messages keep speaking to my girls and that they will never forget....that I love them just the way they are....

 Remembering Fred Rogers, March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003