Everyone’s already blogged this by now, but Mr. Rogers died today.
I used to love Mr. Rogers. When I was younger, my folks only let me watch PBS and the news until I was about eight, so Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, 3-2-1 Contact, and Square One were pretty much the only shows I watched.
I loved all the silly puppetry, and the big deal he made out of changing out of his nice shoes and jacket and into his sneakers and sweater.
I always thought the shoe part was kind of silly, because wouldn’t you want to wear your sneakers outside so your nice shoes wouldn’t get dirty? But the process was so engrossing to me as a five-year-old.
My mom actually met Mr. Rogers a few times. He was an ordained minister, and was very active in a lot of educational charities around Pittsburgh, where he filmed his show. Mom, at that time, worked almost entirely with educational charities, and said he was just the nicest guy to everybody he met.
It’s too bad he’s gone, but I hope at least a couple more generations of kids will get to see the great show he always put on.