Such a Good Feeling

I was thinking about Mr. Rogers. I was thinking about him this morning because I was talking to the cat that lives here in a special meow language so he would get it, (yes, I have seriously lost my mind) and I had a flash memory to that weird puppet segment on Mr. Roger’s show. You know the part where he would set off the trolley to the neighborhood of make-believe, and then those freaky hand puppets would appear and they all sounded exactly like Mr. Rog doing a high voice. “I’m meow sad because meow I’m meow hungry”, and the queen who sounded (hello Frisco!) like a real queen if you know what I’m saying, and they all looked so endlessly odd and fascinating with their paper mache heads. I was riveted and not entirely un-giggly and light-headed. Something about the whole show felt weird and wrong, not in a perverse way, but sort of like it was made for crippled children in the hospital and NOT YOU.

But I always liked Mr. Rogers, although of course I went through the period of condemning and denouncing. I imagined that Mr. Rog was my father (this was a habit I had with pretty much any TV figure since my actual father was not in my life). I loved his whole coming home at the end of the day, walking in singing and changing into his comfortable clothes. How great would it be if your Dad really did that? Someone who gave you all his attention and time and took you to the crayon factory? Come on, don’t judge. My grandmother loved him too, though she used to say, “He’s a little light in the loafers but who cares”? She liked him because he was a good musician. His piano playing always went against the melody of his singing, like here and here. Sort of like Mr. Rogers himself: one flavor on the outside, another on the in.