Lessons from the man in the cardigan

My dad sends a link to a Christian Science Monitor article on "Mr. Rogers: A true director of homeland security." Steven M. Gorelick writes:

...Fast forward from the Cuban Missile Crisis to 1968 when it was even easier to imagine our social fabric was about to rip wide open. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. President Johnson's failure in Vietnam was forcing him from office. And the Democratic convention in Chicago looked more like the Battle of Stalingrad than an exercise in democracy. In the midst of this national angst, a precursor to PBS nationally broadcast the first episodes of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." Monday through Friday, for more than 30 years thereafter, Fred Rogers walked into his room, exchanged his leather shoes for sneakers and his suit coat for a sweater, and helped the nation's children negotiate a complex world in order to build a feeling of internal security.

He taught us that a safe place is not a sealed panic room, but the sense we give children that - although the world can be dangerous and that loss and pain and grief are real - responsible adults will do everything possible to keep them safe. Mr. Rogers' "duct tape" was a gift of gentle, unconditional love, which enabled us to create mental safe rooms that had nothing to do with matches, or canned food, or plastic sheeting.

So, to the quiet man in the durable cardigan and squeaky-clean sneakers, we say our goodbyes.