Excerpts of Fred Rogers, from a 1990 speech he gave at the National Press Club.
He has a very relaxing voice/cadence, and the background has a lot of sounds of rustling/dining.
He has a very relaxing voice/cadence, and the background has a lot of sounds of rustling/dining.
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00:00to be with so many good friends it seems like 35 years has gone very quickly there are times when
00:10it didn't seem that it went that quickly but hearing that hearing all that it has meant to
00:21people and that's what's so wonderfully satisfying about this work to have people come up and say
00:28to you do you know what it meant to us in our lives to be able to visit with you well it's really
00:36marvelous and i i'd like to say good afternoon and i'd like to say guten tag is that right is that
00:44what and you taught me to say the heist dude was was that what you taught me could i ask you the
00:55heist dude did you tell me yeah could you tell me what your names are those of you who are are from
01:04germany yeah all together it sounds like a very nice song when everyone says his or her name together
01:15would you do it be heist dude
01:19very good thank you and what is your name
01:27please
01:30okay thank you
01:34i'm going to show the children some puppets after we have this adult speech but right now this is
01:44something that i have prepared for the grown-ups there are many reasons i feel special about being in
01:53washington for one my great-grandmother lived here and i remember the first 10 years of my life visiting
02:02her four generations together she taught me to like cook spinach in fact i had some this morning and i thought
02:11she says all you have to do is doctor it up a little bit you'll see and she taught me to take a long time to drink a glass of milk
02:24one of her granddaughters is here today do you remember that she said take a long time to drink a glass of milk nana given
02:33it doesn't sit well if you swill it down she said and she was healthy living proof of what she taught she never
02:45discussed her age if anybody ever asked her how old she was she would say 68 she said that even when her own
02:55daughter was 68
03:01but the record showed that she lived to be over a hundred and i know for a fact that she was reading the daily newspaper
03:10without her glasses the day before she died
03:16that was 50 years ago
03:18nevertheless you know feelings about places
03:22as well as feelings about practically everything else
03:26get started long ago
03:29in each of our lives
03:32anyway the excitement of visiting an interesting great-grandmother certainly spilled over into all the times i've come to washington in my adult life
03:42i remember when i was in my 30s
03:45and i was invited to come here and testify before senator pastori
03:50and his committee requesting government support for the fledgling educational television stations
03:58john pastori
04:00i was scared
04:02by the time it came for me to speak it was late in the day and i could tell that the whole committee
04:10including senator pastori
04:13had already heard enough from those who had testified before me
04:19so even though i had a prepared statement i set it aside and told our story as quickly as i could
04:28i'd like you to see the last couple minutes of that washington occasion
04:35it was a mighty special time
04:41and that is a good feeling
04:43when you feel that you are in control of what's going on inside of you
04:50i talked with a group of students from american university yesterday
04:57and they're just
05:01near the end of their adolescence
05:05and they know what it's like to have all of that
05:09turmoil
05:11going on inside of them
05:13and they responded
05:16so lovingly
05:18to those of us
05:20who supported them by saying
05:24congratulations on who you are becoming
05:31because you are getting control of what's inside of you and that is a good feeling
05:38well after that day senator pastori and i corresponded for years
05:43and i learned a lot from him
05:45his father had died when john was a teenager
05:49and john had to go to work to help sustain his mother and his younger siblings
05:54he had always wanted to be a medical doctor
05:58but he realized that he couldn't do that by going to night school
06:03but he could study law at night
06:06and work all day
06:08and so he did
06:09he put himself through college
06:11and law school
06:13and helped the rest of his family as well
06:16but his love for medicine
06:19didn't fade away
06:21john pastori got married and had three children
06:26and became the senator from rhode island
06:30for many years
06:32his three children grew up
06:35one became a doctor
06:38one became a nurse
06:41and the third one married a doctor
06:44all kinds of attitudes
06:47flow from generation to generation
06:53i remember years ago coming to the white house
06:56to watch lyndon johnson sign the act for public television
07:01in fact i understand that there's a twenty-fifth reunion of everyone
07:05who worked at that administration going on in washington today
07:10of course we've come to washington to tape scenes for the neighborhood
07:16we've taped at the zoo
07:18and the place where people make postage stamps
07:21and we've presented one of my zipper sweaters
07:24to the smithsonian institution
07:26and not too long ago
07:29we were invited to the soviet embassy
07:32to celebrate the first exchange
07:35between soviet and american children's television programs
07:40i had gone to moscow
07:42to be on tatyana vedeneva's
07:45the kona nochi malishi program
07:47and she had come here
07:49she had just arrived here as a matter of fact
07:52to be on mr rogers neighborhood
07:55at the embassy we showed some of the moscow studio visit
08:00and i'd like you to see a few minutes of that now
08:04i think it was felicity who called that puppet detente
08:22there were many people at the russian embassy the day we visited
08:31many children as well as adults
08:34and one of the newspaper people told me that such crowds in there were practically unheard of
08:41nevertheless the ambassador and his wife seemed very relaxed and having quite a good time
08:47on the other hand i was being pulled in all directions
08:52people were asking tatyana and me all kinds of questions
08:57this was just before that great openness in the soviet union
09:01of course i didn't know that such a major revolution was about to begin
09:05well one reason i tell you all of this is that there was a columnist from a large newspaper
09:12who obviously had tried to get more of my time than i was able to give
09:18i was so caught up in the interaction with our soviet counterparts
09:23that this columnist misinterpreted my involvement and as he wrote about that day
09:30he called the whole affair a photo opportunity
09:37when i read the clipping that someone sent me i was reminded again
09:42that the basis of any healthy communication is listening
09:48as well as having the time to be able to be yourself
09:53reporters have jobs to do
09:57to get their stories to their papers on time
10:01but reporters aren't machines
10:05they're human beings
10:07who have their own inner stories
10:10in fact
10:13every story that they report
10:15is filtered through their own life experience
10:19no matter how objective they may be
10:24and that's good
10:26it's good
10:28that communicators are not machines
10:31i still wish that i hadn't been so distracted that day
10:36and had been able to be more aware of the needs of that columnist
10:41more present to his moment
10:44not so much because of what he wrote
10:48but because as the years go on
10:51i want to be the best possible listener i can be
10:57i want to be as far removed
11:00from being a machine as possible
11:05well television's a machine
11:08but those of us who appear on it must not be
11:12as adroit as some television hosts and hostesses are at welcoming
11:18interviewing and saying goodbye to a guest in three minutes or less
11:25i lament what existentially is communicated during such an interview
11:30whether we mass communicators intended or not
11:36we provide models for other people's communications
11:41picture and sound bites are not what i've ever wanted to communicate to anybody
11:48there's nothing more fascinating for a human being to witness
11:55than the unfolding of a relationship between two persons
12:01when that can happen in real life
12:05or in any kind of dramatic representation
12:08it's very natural for us to be interested
12:12do you know why
12:16do you know why a two-year-old is fascinated with mud or water play
12:22do you know why a five-year-old might want to build a tall block building
12:27or act like a bride in a pretend wedding
12:32i believe it's the same reason you and i are fascinated with the drama of two people developing a relationship
12:40it's that at different ages
12:42we human beings are working on different life tasks
12:48two-year-olds are working on control of their body fluids
12:53five-year-olds are working on some understanding of what it means to be a boy
12:58or a girl
13:00of what daddies are like
13:02what mummies are like
13:05and in our adult years
13:07we are working on how to be in relationship to those around us
13:13so
13:15listening
13:16and trying to understand the needs of those we would communicate with
13:22seems to me to be the essential prerequisite of any real communication
13:30and we might as well aim for real communication
13:34one more association about Washington DC
13:38over ten years ago
13:40a mother and a father and a five-year-old boy were sitting quite close to me
13:44as i had breakfast at that Howard Johnson's across from the Watergate
13:50they smiled and waved
13:52and i smiled and said
13:54are you some of our television neighbors
13:57when they nodded
13:59i went over to their table
14:01to meet them
14:03well that was the beginning of a long relationship
14:06that little boy
14:08Jeff Erlinger
14:10had multiple handicaps
14:13but not a lack of confidence
14:16Mr. and Mrs. Erlinger had obviously treated him with such affection and respect
14:23that he radiated his own special kind of sunshine
14:27we had a good visit that morning
14:30talking about the neighborhood characters
14:33and the sites the Erlingers were planning to visit in Washington
14:37they had come from Wisconsin
14:40to show Jeff this wonderful city
14:43every year after that
14:45Jeff's mom and dad sent progress reports
14:48how he was doing in school
14:51what new personal tasks he had been able to accomplish
14:55and when he was about eleven
14:57they wrote to say
14:59that Jeff had gotten a new electric wheelchair
15:03well i had been thinking about showing a wheelchair on the neighborhood for some time
15:09i wanted children who used such chairs
15:13to feel represented in our television community
15:16and i wanted children who didn't use those chairs
15:21to come to view them as something acceptable and respectable
15:26so i called and asked if the Erlingers would consider coming to Pittsburgh
15:31and having Jeff demonstrate his special chair right on the television program
15:37they accepted the invitation
15:40and when they came to the studio
15:42it was a great reunion
15:44six years had passed
15:46since we had been together
15:48and after our original greetings
15:51i asked our television director to forego any rehearsal
15:56and simply tape Jeff's visit
15:59all i told Jeff was that i would like him
16:03to show the children
16:05how he was able to work his chair
16:08and also
16:09i'd like us to sing
16:11his favorite neighborhood song together
16:14in his usual way he said
16:17sure
16:18and pretty soon
16:19we had started
16:21i'd like you to see that time that we had together
16:24you know i've always felt that
16:29that feelings
16:32that are mentionable
16:34are so much more manageable
16:36and i think that's what we try to do with the neighborhood
16:41is to
16:42to help make feelings mentionable
16:44well
16:46last year
16:48Jeff graduated from high school
16:50and now he's enrolled in an independent living dorm
16:56at a local college
16:58he never ceases to inspire me
17:01i feel i've been greatly blessed
17:05by many people i've been able to meet and come to know
17:09some of you are in this room
17:13sure i've worked hard
17:16you don't choose a job in communications
17:20and expect not to work hard
17:23but you can expect
17:25that you don't have to do it alone
17:28to me
17:31that's what communications
17:34is all about
17:35nobody should have to do it alone
17:38and communications
17:41is communing
17:43in a community
17:45where people listen to themselves
17:48and others
17:49where they try to understand what they've heard
17:53and then respond to all the things that they've heard
17:57respond to
17:58with all the creativity
18:00and care
18:01that their life
18:03has allowed them to develop
18:05i certainly wish you all well
18:08in all that you do
18:10and thank you for your warm welcome today