Fred Rogers Acceptance Speech – 1997
Our neighbor didn’t die, he was just needed someplace else.
He took a moment that was about recognizing him and turned it into a moment to recognize everyone who was there and everyone who made it possible for him to do what he does. If you want a perfect example of why he is so fondly remembered and such a great person, it’s tough to find a better one than this.
I’m going to need y’all to stop putting the stuff on my dash and reducing me to a pile of tears. I swear Mr. Rogers just instantly turns on the faucet for me.
Just look at the faces on the audience. You can tell how moved they are to think of the people who helped them along the way. Maybe they were thinking of a grandmother or a sibling or a best friend or kindly neighbor. He made that moment so real for all of them.
“Early this year, when television handed him its highest honor, he responded by telling television— gently, of course— to just shut up
for once, and television listened. He had already won his third Daytime
Emmy, and now he went onstage to accept Emmy’s Lifetime Achievement
Award, and there, in front of all the soap-opera stars and talk-show
sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting
saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone,
‘All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you
just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people
who have helped you become who you are… Ten seconds of silence.’ And
then he lifted his wrist, and looked at the audience, and looked at his
watch, and said softly, ‘I’ll watch the time,’ and there was, at first, a
small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as
people realized that he wasn’t kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch but rather a man,
an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked…
and so they did. One second, two seconds, three seconds… and now the
jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears
fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal
chandelier, and Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said,
‘May God be with you’ to all his vanquished children.“I love the idea of Mr. Rogers being an authority figure you wouldn’t dare disobey, not out of fear but out of pure, overflowing, deep respect. To disappoint him is unfathomable.