The Neighborhood

Richard Strauss; Don Quixote; Death And Transfiguration; The MET Orchestra; James Levine, conducting

I don’t think a single person on this beautiful earth could remain forever immune to the charm, charisma and spell of the gentleman millions of viewers know as Mr. Rogers. With a song in his heart and a smile on his face, he burst through the door of his – house? – to hang up his coat, change into his tennie runners and talk to me. Me. He looked me full in the face and knew all the things that I wanted to hear him talk about.

And he knew almost everything. If he didn’t know about something, well, he took us on a field trip to find out about it. The bakery, the theatre, the music store, the candy shop, the post office, the bank and a host of other unorthodox locations became surprising educational venues.

I remember the day Mr. Rogers came through the door with no smile on his face. He didn’t take off his coat and he didn’t change his shoes. He just sat on the bench at the foot of the small staircase and finished the “Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood” song. I thought, Oh, no! What’s wrong with Mr. Rogers? Did he forget to hang up his coat? Is he mad? Did he have a fight with his producer and is he going to quit the show?

Fred Rogers had set this scene up brilliantly. With years of consistency behind him, he only had to change his routine just a little bit to give the young people who watched his show the impression that something was wrong. It certainly got my attention. What happened? Mr. Rogers had received a traffic ticket. He didn’t back away from the truth. He was angry. I don’t recall how he explained it to his viewers; mostly from the standpoint, I would guess, of how it made him feel. He took us to the police department to pay his fine and he showed a cross-section of America’s young people how to handle a frustrating and helpless situation with dignity, grace and an air of respect for both themselves and the perceived source of their discontent.

When Mr. Rogers talked, he had serious things to say but always in a pleasant manner. The Neighborhood Of Make-Believe, however, revealed his creative and humorous side. A cat who lived in a schoolhouse up in a tree. A cranky woman who lived in a museum-go-round that owned an Ogden Nash-like Boomerang-Toomerang-Zoomerang. The proprietor of a rocking chair factory named Corny Cornflake S. Pecially. A tap-dancing telephone operator named Miss Paullificate. A shy introverted tiger who lived in a clock and wore a watch because “when you live in a clock, you really should know what time it is.” But the best good-natured practical joke Mr. Rogers played on his young audience was a donkey named Donkey Hodie who found a place in the “Neighborhood” to build a windmill. King Friday XIII didn’t want it so close to the castle, so Donkey Hodie built it a little further off in the nebulous Someplace Else.

Richard Strauss wrote his grand “Don Quixote” in 1897 for cello, viola and a very large orchestra. He wrote it in the form of theme and variations. The cello soloist represents the esteemed Don Quixote and the solo viola, along with the tenor tuba, depicts the comic Sancho Panza. Each variation portrays a scene from the novel “Don Quixote de la Mancha” by Miguel de Cervantes.

For a while in the 1980’s, Joan Rivers hosted The Tonight Show on Tuesdays. On one of her shows, she invited Fred Rogers to appear as a guest. He agreed. I know nothing about her pretense in offering the invitation, but it seemed like she intended to ridicule him as the interview started. In two minutes or less, she was putty in his hands and he proceeded over the next fifteen minutes to charm the pants off of her, the result of which he graciously established himself as a man who could talk to adults about children in a serious yet entertaining way on a late-night talk show. While Ms. Rivers stood in the gaze of two and a half million television viewers not wearing any pants.

Credits: To Mr. Fred Rogers, for teaching children how to be people. I liked it when you fed the fish.