Kindness and Wonder by Gavin Edwards

Author:Gavin Edwards
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062950758
Publisher: HarperCollins

ANOTHER NOTABLE VISITOR ON THE NEIGHBORHOOD WAS LYNN Swann, star wide receiver (and four-time Super Bowl champion) with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was local, he was happy to talk about safety equipment and uniforms, and as a trained ballet dancer, he could talk about both sports and dance—and perform a quick pas de deux. “The program was straightforward and very engaging,” Swann said. “Fred was always Fred. Very thoughtful guy.” What Swann didn’t expect was how much impact his appearance would make—to this day, he meets people who remember that episode, especially boys who decided it would be okay to try dancing if it was endorsed by a Super Bowl MVP. “It encouraged people to do more things and try more things,” Swann said. “The show had a message of understanding.”

Another guest who particularly cherished that message of understanding: Ben Adelman, who has cerebral palsy. “He inspired so many people and he made children feel good,” Adelman said. In a wheelchair because of his cerebral palsy, he appeared on the Neighborhood to show how a wheelchair lift in a van works. But one particular aspect of having a conversation with Mister Rogers made a deep impression on Adelman: “He would look right at you as he was talking to you. A lot of people don’t look at me when I’m trying to talk to them.”

Big Bird also came to visit, acting as a giant yellow ambassador of the other long-running PBS children’s program, Sesame Street. Fittingly, his visit was scheduled for the week on “Competition.” Mister Rogers initially dismissed that timing as coincidence before allowing, “Well, maybe it was unconscious.”

To interact with Big Bird, Fred Rogers deployed four of his most famous puppets. Big Bird lopes into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, carrying a picture he’s made of the Neighborhood to enter in King Friday’s art contest. X the Owl, excited by the arrival of another bird, has memorized a “welcome poem” and festooned his tree with signs of greeting. All this hullaballoo makes Henrietta Pussycat worried that she’s being displaced from X’s affections. But she overcomes her jealousy, telling the guileless yellow visitor, “Meow meow meow like you, too, meow Bird!”

The crossover, charming and relaxed, was the product of some heated negotiations. Fred’s original script for the show called for Caroll Spinney, the man inside the Big Bird suit, to remove his costume on camera, demystifying it and showing viewers that Big Bird was just a form of dress-up. Spinney refused: he had never done that and didn’t want to shatter the illusion of Big Bird. The two men went back and forth on the phone and settled on the compromise that Big Bird would appear only in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, where the question of his reality would be moot.

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