Impact
By Allen A. Raymond, Publisher

As I became more alert I realized it would not be possible; Susan, my sister, died on Thanksgiving Day in 2000, after a long bout with cancer.

For more than 50 years, as brother and sister, she and I exchanged newspaper stories about snow storms, especially those that hit Buffalo, NY. The reason for our interest in Buffalo's winters was obvious, at least to us…we were brought up in Buffalo where snow, in the winter, was (and is) topic #1.

As my sister's health declined, we had many opportunities to talk and laugh as we recalled our interaction with each other while growing up. She was nine years older, so her memories and mine – of the same incident – were, not surprisingly, remarkably dissimilar.

For example, while I'd remember my sister bossing me around as we toured the Chicago World's Fair, she'd remember the nerve-wracking challenge of keeping me in check.

As Susan's last days approached, we found many opportunities to say nice things to each other, to laugh about how we acted when we were kids. Sometimes I'd take her on drives around town (she lived in Denver) so she could see some of the new buildings, or admire the lights decorating the homes at Christmas. One evening I took her to a local amateur theater group's performance of a Broadway musical (she was an accomplished viola player and had played in the Denver Symphony). She loved it.

Through all of these "down days" we experienced many candid, personal and warm moments together, moments which "just happened," without any conscious effort on the part of either of us.

I'm reminded of this as I contemplate the death of Fred Rogers on February 27, 2003. For 32 years he was the star of the famous PBS television program, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," and news of his death was on the front pages of almost every newspaper in the country.

As I read the wonderful comments, I found that Joyce Millman, in an article about Mr. Rogers in The New York Times seemed to capture it all. "He is irreplaceable – not that anyone has tried very hard to replace him. Fred Rogers undertook his life's work with extraordinary integrity and grace." My sister did that, too.

Fred Rogers wasn't alive to savor the accolades but I hoped he knew his impact on so many of us, just as Susan knew her impact on me.

Not to worry. Education Week reported that Fred Rogers, during his lifetime, was "the recipient of two Peabody Awards, four Emmys, a lifetime-achievement award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences – plus the recipient of the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom."

In July, 1982, Patricia Broderick and I had breakfast with Fred Rogers as we prepared a profile of him for our December, 1982 issue.

We found him, in real life, to be all that he was on television – a genuinely kind, thoughtful person who loved kids.

"When people call me a teacher," he said as we parted, "it is one of the greatest compliments I can receive." Amen to that.

Allen Raymond is the Editor/Publisher for Teaching Pre K-8.

May 2003, Vol.33, No.8