Mr.
Rodgers Neighborhood
Mister Rogers' beautiful day online - By Bruce Schwartz,
June 1999 - USA TODAY © 1999
Cyberspace often is painted as a foreboding world with
dark alleys and dangerous streets. But to at least one man, it can always be a beautiful
day in the neighborhood.
"I'm just sending an e-mail postcard from our site to my sister, and
I'm hoping that it's going through," Fred Rogers is saying. "Her name
is Elaine. We have these cards you can make, so I sent her one that has Lady Elaine
Fairchilde," a character from the neighborhood.
Like a lot of parents today, Rogers is far less tech-savvy than the hundreds of
thousands of kids who follow the comforting comings and goings on PBS' eternal
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
But he perseveres. Right now, he's trying his hand at the show's just-revamped
Web site at www.pbs.org/rogers.
"I think it's wonderful how the children are teaching us these
days," he says.
The site is as warm and fuzzy as a cardigan, as kid-friendly as the Neighborhood
of Make-Believe. A door flips open, a trolley whistles a greeting, Picture Picture says
"hi." Click here for a fun fact about his sweaters, there for a show-and-tell
craft project.
Kids can make up stories to send to friends, post messages and sing along with
the show's trademark songs.
And "Remember When" walks visitors through pictures of Fred McFeely
Rogers' life, from his childhood in Latrobe, Pa., where he was born in 1928, to his 1998
lifetime achievement Emmy.
"I was thinking about my mother, who rode a horse to school, and she
lived to see somebody walk on the moon. It's just amazing what human beings can do when
they want to -- for good or ill."
He views the Net in the same light. "I got into (TV) because I didn't like
it and there's a lot I still don't like about it, a lot of things that I feel pull people
away from each other. But there are a lot of things that do just the opposite and I think
that the Internet can do that as well.
"We offer on the Neighborhood a smorgasbord of ways for people to say
who they are and how they feel, and they could do that through the Internet, too. That
part of it's wonderful."
For parents, whether their children are watching TV, listening to music or
sitting in a movie theater, the basics have always remained the same: Make sure your
children know they are part of your family and know the standards your family lives by.
"That can be very comforting for a child, to know that he or she is part of a family
and what that family stands for."
And don't forget to switch it all off -- TV, radio and PC -- often. "I'm
big on silence."
