When I was a young, single reporter working for The Wall Street Journal, I fell in love with an older man. It was Mr. Rogers. I had never seen the PBS television show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” as a child but happened to catch it one morning when I was home sick from work. There was something about his slow, soft way of speaking, those cerulean eyes looking directly at me, the penny loafers, the blue sneakers and pastel sweaters that was more genuine than I had ever experienced in any of my much poorer excuses for boyfriends. (This was well before I met my wonderful husband!)

After seeing that first show, I wouldn’t go to work in the mornings until after “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” was over. The show aired again at 4 p.m, and often I would sneak into the break room at our Wall Street Journal office where there was a TV just so I could watch it again.

I needed to hear him sing “It’s such a nice feeling to know you’re alive/ It’s such a good feeling you’re growing inside/ And when you wake up ready to say/ I think I’ll make a snappy new day.” Yes, that’s what I longed for in my high-pressure career – snappy new days. I needed someone too who would say, “I like you just the way you are.” Then he would disappear out the door saying, “I’ll be back when day is new/ And I’ll have more ideas for you.” What hope it gave me!

PBS-TV has been airing a splendid documentary called “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” about Fred Rogers’ ministry in television. Ministry is what it was, though he wore a sweater, not a religious collar. At the beginning of the documentary he says, “Love is at the root of everything … love and the lack of it.”
Much of the film centers on what a pioneer he was. Not long after a pool manager in the South was captured on video pouring cleaning chemicals into a public pool where African American citizens were swimming, Mr. Rogers invited his TV friend “Officer” Clemmons, a black man, to soak his feet with him in a plastic basin. He then dries Officer Clemmons’ feet with a towel. Remind you of anyone?

In another encounter sure to get you crying, he crouches to talk with a young boy named Jeff whose neck, arms and legs are strapped into a wheelchair, the result of having suffered a nerve-damaging tumor as a baby. He sings Jeff a song he wrote called, “It’s You I Like.”

Often Mr. Rogers would comment on traumatic national events. I wish we had him today to guide us in what to say to our children about school shootings, families being separated at the border, and about returning a sense of service and basic decency to our government and businesses.

Amazingly, one of the story lines from decades ago in his “Neighborhood of Make-Believe” concerns an attempt by King Friday (one of his puppet creations) to oppose change from reaching his land. The kingdom’s other puppets decide to float balloons over King Friday’s castle with messages that say, “Peaceful Co-existence,” “Tenderness,” and “Understanding.”

Perhaps we should try floating similar balloons messages over the White House and our Capitol.
We need Mr. Rogers’ voice, his heart, his mind, his creativity, and his compassion in our world today. We too can be his voice — by following his advice that, “If you really want to communicate, the most important thing is to listen,” and “You don’t have to do anything sensational for people to love you.”

Here’s a small footnote. I wrote a humorous poem about my adult crush on Mr. Rogers, which friends encouraged me to send him. I thought it too silly to do that. Mr. Rogers died of cancer in 2003. I’ve regretted ever since not writing him to tell him how much he meant to me as a young professional. If you have a poem or card you’ve been saving to send to someone who’s meant a lot to you, do send it.

Let’s also think about who is our neighbor. And by the way, as Mr. Rogers would say, won’t you be, please won’t you be, my neighbor?