inspired by Mr. Rogers

i like to check in on some scrapbookers blogs know and again and I just came across this quote from Stacy Julian's page...this touched me because my Mom loves Mr. Rogers and she is so much of the cornerstone of me...so i just had to drop this into my blog...


excerpt from Stacy Julian's blog www.stacysbigpicture.typepad.com:
Using a quote from Mr. Rogers on a scrapbook page just now. Had to look it up and re-read this excerpt from the book about him by Amy Hollingsworth. Thought you might enjoy it too ...



"Just think. Just be quiet and think," he said softly. "It'll make all the difference in the world." Then he turned back to me and said with quiet exasperation, "I just feel that there isn't enough silence, you know, and I'm always asking peole if they can just give some silence. The last time I was at the White House, I said, "Would you please just have a half-minute of silence to think about somebody who has helped you become who you are? and the whole fancy meeting , you know, the whole fancy East Room of the White House, sitting silently, thinking about people who they might not have thought of for a long time that had made a big difference in their lives. When that meeting was over, one of the guards came up to me all in white and with the gold braids and everything [he motioned with his hand, touching his shoulders], and said, Mister Rogers, do you know who I thought about during that half-minute that you gave us?""And I said, 'No, who?'"I thought of my grandfather's brother.""And I said, 'How was he special to you?""Just before he died he took me to his basement and gave me his fishing rod ... I hadn't thought of that for a long, long time,"The White House guard went on to explain that he was very young at the time and that the bequeathal of the fishing rod before his great-uncle died had a profound effect upon him. In fact, he wondered if that was perhaps why loved fishing so much and why he liked to teach the children in his neighborhood all about it. But it took those moments of silence -- requested by Fred in the "fancy" East Room of the White House -- to bring the legacy to mind.