Tag Archives: Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

Mister Rogers and Mr. Wooden

by Woody

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Matching bookends:

Mister Rogers and Mr. Wooden

The recent release of the movie “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” starring Tom Hanks, made me wish I had met Mister Rogers.

After a moment’s mild envy I realized, in a manner, I did for I was blessed to know Mister Wooden. Indeed, John Wooden and Fred Rogers were in many ways matching human bookends.

Mister Rogers famously used puppets for teaching.

Both famous men humbly considered themselves teachers at heart; were kind to their core; and felt “love” was the most important word in the English language. Daily, Rogers swam 20 minutes and Wooden walked four miles. Both personally answered every fan letter they received. Both made being “old-fashioned” cool.

While I never visited “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” I dropped by Mister Wooden’s neighborhood in Encino many times. One visit, when I took my two young children to meet Wooden, reminds me especially of Mister Rogers. After all, one of the highlights featured a stuffed animal.

After leading my then-8-year-old son, 10-year-old daughter and me into the living room, the first thing Wooden did was excuse himself to retrieve something off a shelf in his study. One of his ten NCAA national championship trophies? A Coach of the Year or Hall of Fame plaque? Or perhaps he was getting down one of the many humanitarian awards that had him sharing august company with such notables as Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, and Melinda Gates?

“Heavens sakes, no!” to borrow one of Wooden’s favorite phrases of exasperation. Instead, the acclaimed “Wizard of Westwood” returned carrying a small, stuffed gorilla about the size of a teddy bear. It was wearing a red vest with a matching bowtie. And the fancy anthropoid could talk.

“You’re a genius!!!” the talking stuffed ape in the fancy red vest said enthusiastically, his words of praise meriting three exclamation marks at the least.

My son and daughter visiting with Coach John Wooden.

“Excellent thinking!!!” it continued.

“You’re brilliant!!!”

“Grrreat idea!!!”

“That’s fabuuulous!!!”

“That’s awesome!!!”

“Outstanding!!!”

My son and daughter laughed, as did I. Wooden smiled at them before giving me a knowing wink. What appeared to be a child’s toy to others, The Greatest Basketball Coach Who Ever Lived saw as a teaching tool.

“This is The Self-Esteem Ape,” Coach explained softly and warmly – in a Mister Rogers-like voice I now realize – as he cradled the stuffed animal given to him by his daughter Nan. “When our self-esteem is a little low, we all need to be picked up a little.”

John Wooden, like Fred Rogers, was a Self-Esteem Wizard.

A photograph of my kids sitting on Coach’s lap reveals how completely comfortable they felt in his company from the start. Both kids have taken a framed print with them to every college dorm room, apartment and house they have lived in since. Indeed, both cite that as one of the most magical days in their lives.

During our two-hour visit, Coach talked to my kids about basketball for about five minutes and spent the rest of the time sharing stories about his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. About Nellie. About his idols Abraham Lincoln (“There is nothing stronger than gentleness”) and Mother Teresa (“If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one”). About his famous Pyramid of Success.

And about his father Joshua’s “Two Sets of Threes: Don’t whine. Don’t complain. Don’t make excuses. / Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal.”

Escorting his three visitors outside to the front gate at the conclusion of the rose-petal-pressed-in-a-scrapbook-like afternoon, Coach Wooden added a fourth Never:

“Never forget,” The Wizard of Self-Esteem told my kids, a hand on each of their shoulders, “how special you are.”

Sounds like Mister Rogers, doesn’t it?

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Part 1: A Boy’s Letter to Mister Rogers

by Woody

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Beautiful Day in a Neighborhood

Writing a letter to a famous television personality and expecting a reply is not dissimilar from putting a message in a bottle and throwing it into the sea.

Yet that is what a young boy in a Ventura neighborhood did, with the help of his mother, eighteen years past. Composed by Franklin, typed by his mom and printed in Arial font, the letter read:

“December 13, 2000

“Dear Mr. Rogers,

“My name is Franklin and I am 3 and a half years old. My mommy is computing this for me. I’d like to have a book about how to do things. You know how everything works, so maybe you know this book? I wish you could put all of your ‘how’ movies together and send it to me.

A postcard sent personally from Mister Rogers to Franklin

A postcard sent from Mister Rogers to Franklin

“I want to know how you make plastic and how plastic gets squished into shape like a cowboy hat. Mommy says plastic starts with oil, but how does black stuff become a shiny hat? Mommy told me how to make people and deer but how do you make glass and windows? I want to know how they make this keyboard. I also want to know how to read letters.

“Can you please help me?

“I love you,

“Franklin Hansen”

Beneath Franklin’s carefully printed signature was a typed postscript:

“A note from Mom: Thank you for so many wonderful years of ‘Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood’ and for your essays in ‘Ladybug’ magazine. I am learning as much about ‘how’ now as when I was a child and I am so grateful that my children can relax with you and learn how to be better people: nicer, kinder, and more open-minded. I am still learning from you and my son’s curiosity is a wonderful excuse to say thank-you. I am sad about your retirement but as long as PBS keeps airing your shows (how do I ensure this?) my kids will continue to grow with your wisdom.

“Sincerely,

“Cindy Hansen”

All these years later, Cindy retells: “We were watching one of the shows and Franklin absolutely adored those factory segments. So after one of the shows we were talking about them and all of the things he wanted to know. He wanted to ask/wish why Mister Rogers didn’t have a show that was just those factory visits.”

The magnificent mother of two sons adds: “I was very glad that my boys enjoyed him as much as I had when I was younger. When we went to the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum (around 2010), we were so excited to see the set with Trolley moving through the Neighborhood. As we drove through town the boys kept saying, ‘He filmed it here Mom!’ Of course, this was his Neighborhood.”

Launched in 1968, the beloved “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” television show aired original episodes until 2001 – two years before the host’s death at age 74. Marking the iconic educational show’s 50th anniversary, a new film “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” is the highest grossing documentary of 2018. Moreover, Tom Hanks will star in another movie about the late Fred Rogers, “You Are My Friend,” to be released next year.

Back in 2000, back when Franklin was “3 and a half” and wrote a letter filled with questions, Mister Rogers was a big deal and surely too busy to personally answer it.

And yet in early January of 2001, it was a beautiful day in a Ventura neighborhood because a letter arrived from Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. The envelope was addressed to Cindy Hansen, but inside was a letter written to her son.

Next week, we will see Mister Rogers’ remarkable reply.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden & Me Kickstarter Front PhotoCheck out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …