NP - Won't You Be My Neighbor?

[Mark Kohut]

Mr. Rogers started in my hometown--he grew up just outside it. I haven't
yet seen that documentary but I will.
Yes, he does seem to have been a saint. The recent biography of him is good
too, although it does feel too hagiographic in that
even saints MUST have sometimes sinned, sometimes had such dark nights of
the soul we have to think
the demonic side was ahead for awhile. I wonder if the doc shows anything
like that.

His family were of the major business-owning class in his town. The ones
who lived on the hill. His dad
and an uncle, I believe, used to take care of the health bills of the
hard-working workers, although they only paid
competitive i.e. too low wages; kept unions at bay, too this way.  When
some of the men used to drink their paychecks away,
the wives would go to management for loans. They were given and carried on
the books uncollected except voluntarily.
the wives or loved ones tried to work with management to reduce or stop the
drinking. Family, social, peer pressure,
as before communities were "bowling alone" in that phrase, was the effort.
If, when, the husbands did not drink away their pay, the women did
try to pay it back but when the businesses were finally sold meticulous
books of uncollected loans got known. A real example of
mostly benevolent paternalistic capitalism, according to that bio (which
may not have presented any of any badder shit).

His mother talked to the school nurse, and if any child classmate of Mr.
Rogers needed medical care or was hungry,
she told the nurse to get it done and send her the bill. No one besides
them knew for a long time--it was said to be
wha the school could do....

She, who loved her yearly trip to NYC at the Christmas holiday, as did the
wives of many other Pittsburgh moguls,
had the names of all of the town's children and bought ALL something.

I once talked to a guy who had gone to Divinity School with Mr. Rogers and
he told me this: he had an unbreakable phobia
about taking paper and pencil tests.......so, he had permission to be
tested orally......I've seen that as face-to-face humanity in practice.

On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 2:16 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> I saw it on HBO streaming. But try your local library.
>
> On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 11:23 AM <jbloocher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Is this on YouTube David?
> >
> > Emma
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > > On 12 Apr 2019, at 17:47, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I never watched Mr Roger's Neighborhood as a child. Born before that
> era.
> > > And I never saw its appeal. But I just watched this documentary, and it
> > > really moved me. That man was a saint.
> > >
> > > David Morris
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>