"Won't You Be My Neighbor" is an excellent documentary. I hadn't heard sniffles throughout a theater like that since "Titanic."

I met him at the funeral of one of my fellow grad students. Fred Rogers was there because he had met the student on a flight from San Francisco to Pittsburgh.

They were seated next to each other Rogers asked why the student was going to Pittsburgh. "I'm going to be a student at CMU." 1/N

"Really? Have you been to Pittsburgh?"

"No. This is my first time out of China."

"Where will you be stay?"

"I don't know. I guess in a hotel until I find a room." 2/N

"No, that won't do. You'll stay with me until we can find you a nice place."

So he stayed for a month in Fred Roger's apartment.

3/4

When my classmate was killed in a tragic accident, Rogers was there at a Buddhist funeral to deliver the sermon for his friend. Who was a foreigner he had met on an airplane and who he had invited into his home.

And that is what I learned from Mr. Rogers.

4/4

He absolutely did, and I wish my mom hadn’t weaponized my childhood admiration of him to force obedience. Any time my small child self wasn’t behaving the way she wanted, it was “what would Mr. Rogers say?”. She managed to direct my resentment at him instead of herself. I was too young to see it.

He wasn't wearing slogans or righteous at all.

He just spoke with the calm authority of a man who allowed kindness to be his beacon, and encouraged kids to do the same.

But. He did this with a kindness that made decency look matter of course instead of a special ask.

He normalized decency for a children's audience, at their level of understanding.

Gently. Easily.

Minimum wage with no benefits. No security. No respect for player and staff safety.

No more.

I’ve had my sad times and now I’m back in fight mode.

We’re going to get our workers a fair wage.

We’re going to get our staff security and make the workplace safer.

We’re going to hold their feet to the fire because no one who works for a six billion dollar company should make minimum wage.