Fred Rogers first came through his front door and into our homes fifty years ago. He put on his sneakers and his cardigan and welcomed everyone to his neighborhood. My children were five and two at the time and their father was in Vietnam. Mr. Rogers was a part of our daily routine, a gentle, loving presence in an unpredictable and fearful time.
For 1968 is also remembered as the year that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were murdered, students protested, campuses shut down, racism was alive and well, the administration lied to us and in the fall we elected a new president who turned out to be a paranoid liar. Our country was mired in an endless war and escalating violence at home led eventually to horrors like the Kent State University campus massacre by law officers.
The teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes warned, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” If only that weren’t so. Fifty years later, we are once again mired in an endless war, children are murdered in their schools, racism still rears its ugly head, people are shot in the streets by police and we have a paranoid, misogynistic, xenophobic, racist president who lies all the time: the very opposite of a Mr. Rogers who welcomes everyone into his neighborhood. Where is Mr. Rogers when we need him?
Feeling the weight of the world, not an uncommon feeling these days, I took a walk last week in the neighborhood near my church. I parked by the Welcome Garden sign and started walking down the side streets. It was a day when dreary weather prevailed following one of our monster snowstorms, leaving broken branches and dirty drifts of snow. Feeling like spring would never come (I write this on Tuesday March 13, a week before the official start of spring, as yet again snow piles up outside), I was not in a very good mood.
Yet I hadn’t gone far before I noticed a sign in Spanish and Arabic as well as English: No matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor.
A couple of doors down a sign invited: Welcome to our porch. I turned a corner and walked towards an elementary school. Tacked onto several telephone poles, some pink papers in plastic sleeves were fluttering in the wind. I crossed over to one and read: Care for our air, no idling; Please don’t idle your car; children breathing.
By this time I had counted three Black Lives Matter posters and would see two more before I finished my walk. Another house displayed the same multilingual sign I had seen before. The last that I noticed was one leaning over in the snow that said it all: In this house we believe: Black Lives Matter; Women’s rights are human rights; No human is illegal, Science is real, Love is love, Kindness is everything.
A short walk in one Concord neighborhood. One small pocket of hope in two square blocks of love. That is what I saw that day. Where is Mr. Rogers now that we need him? The answer is: right here, and everywhere that good-hearted people ask “Won’t you be my neighbor?”
I walked back to my car with a lighter heart.
9 Responses
Rich with outreach and caring, these are wonderful moments that you have shared, they show progress and evolution in our species! Thank you, Polly !!
Beautiful! You made me cry this morning. Sometimes I get so discouraged about our country and our world. Thank you for restoring my hope in knowing there are so many good people in our world. You send me off to to Georgia with hope and resolve to spread acceptance and joy and love. See you soon.
Ann Schummers
I’m with Anne, made me cry, but am so thankful for what you saw on your walk in our beloved West Concord where we lived in friendship for 13 years raising our young children with yours in that neighbors of West Concord union church !
Than you Polly, words of hope
Polly, you live in a very welcoming neighborhood. On my street in Boxborough, I seem to be one of the only ones with any kind of “welcoming sign.” In my case, it’s hate has no home here. So gratifying to know that so many of your neighbors not only welcome all people, but are open and proud to do so. Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful, Polly. Thank you for this.
A wonderfully uplifting reflection. It’s very much appreciated in this time of continual bad news tweets from POTUS.
Thank you so much.
That was just what I needed to read before I try to go to sleep; something to make me feel a little more hopeful about our world.
(But I still miss Mr. Rogers!)
Thank you, Polly!
Another good post, cuz, along with the pictures. I know spring is around the corner and Hope is de rigueur, but Fred Rogers was a “loser” in the eyes of many of our countrymen who prevailed in the last presidential election. As one of your responders pointed out, the welcoming attitude in your Concord and my Cambridge is not apparent in many other communities.
Wonderful! Great inspiration before our Walden Walk this morning. Will carry you and your wisdom with us in Spirit.