The Wisdom of Mr. Rogers

In my last blog I mentioned that Lenny and I love to travel. 

Well, we are doing that right now.  

We are in Prague about to get on a boat that will take us along the

Rhine and Main rivers across to Cologne in Germany. 

 I hope to see lots of castles along the way.



Mr. Rogers has offered to fill in for me while I am gone.

I have been working on a presentation called
People of our Neighborhood
for NAEYC in a few weeks. 
Mr. Rogers was an important neighbor 
 so I did a little reading about him.
 I just finished a book (on my Nook) called
  Wisdom from The World According to Mister Rogers.



The foreword was written by his wife. 
She said she was always finding little notes that Fred
had written to himself with special thoughts and quotes on them. 
 She compiled his notes into this little book. 


Here are a few that were meaningful to me.
......
On the recent anniversary of 9/11


When I was a boy and would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping”. To this day, especially in time of “disaster”, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers-so many caring people in the world.




When I was very young, most of my childhood heroes wore capes, flew through the air, or picked up buildings with one arm. They were spectacular and got a lot of attention. But as I grew, my heroes changed, so that now I can honestly say that anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me.

  As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has-or ever will have- something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and provide ways of developing its expression.

“I like being a part of the beach of life...
I like being one of the grains of sand.”
Dr. Margaret McFarland

Often when you think you’re at the end of something,
you’re at the beginning of something else. 
I’ve felt that many times. 

 My hope for all of us is that “the miles we go before we sleep”

will be filled with all the feelings that come from deep caring...

delight, sadness, joy, wisdom...

and that in all the endings of our life
we will be able to see the new beginnings.




So in all that you do in all of your life,

I wish you the strength and the grace to make those choices
which will allow you and your neighbor to become the best
of whoever you are.

Greetings from Prague......