I know this is wrong...

By now most of you know that Fred Rogers, host of the long-running PBS show Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, has passed away. I watched the show from just about the time it first aired in 1968--I always like it (although my mom thought he was just a little...odd) because he seemed like such a nice man, and because there were only four channels on TV, and one of them was the crappy CBS station that only came in good if you held on to the antenna while you watched (so much for Captain Kangaroo).

Anyway, I did enjoy his show, and of all the episodes, one which has always stuck out a bit in my mind is the one where he comes by to feed the fish, and discovers a floater. Poor fish. The fish has died. Mr. Rogers gently scooped up the little fish and set him unobtrusively on the counter while talking about life and the feelings you might have if a pet dies and some things to do to make it better. He said that maybe we should give Mr. Fish a nice burial. A handy shoebox was found, and the fish and its paper towel were ever so gently placed into the box. Mr. Rogers then found a small piece of wood--pentagonal in shape, if I remember correctly--on a little stick. He carefully used a big black marker and wrote "f i s h." "Fish," he said. He quietly gathered up his things and went outside to the artificial back yard, where he knelt down and dug a shoebox sized hole in the floor of the studio, inserted the box, covered it, and placed the simple marker. The rest of the show I don't recall, although I'm sure there was a discussion in a similar vein over in the Neighborhood of Make Believe, and Mr. McFeeley probably had some words of comfort.

Now that Mr. Rogers has passed along, despite my best intentions, all I can imagine is a neat, clean, quiet man in a cardigan and deck shoes, lying in a large shoebox with a small sign above him reading "f r e d."
posted by Terry at 11:47:00 AM