There Are Many Ways To Say I Love You

March 11, 2016 10:23 AM

Singer and educator François Clemmons is probably best remembered by several generations of Americans as Officer Clemmons from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. On their weekly segment on NPR's Morning Edition today, StoryCorps featured an interview with Clemmons about his original reluctance to play the part in the racially-heated days of the late 1960s, his realization of the importance of presenting a black role model to children, and ultimately his life-long friendship with Fred Rogers.

This clip from a 1993 episode of the show features the last time Clemmons ever appeared on the show but also re-creates the moment he discusses in the interview from 1968 where he and Mister Rogers soaked their feet together in a wading pool and Rogers then dried Clemmons feet on camera -- a moment of enormous symbolism in 1968, and still an enduring image of the soul of Fred Rogers. Clemmons and Rogers also sing a MRN standard, "There Are Many Ways To Say I Love You" (instrumental version by the show's musical director, Johnny Costa).

posted by briank (14 comments total)

From another NPR piece, on the context of interracial swimming pools in 1968:

JEFF WILTSE: And this fear of segregated - or integrated swimming pools comes up so often. In 1968, Strom Thurmond, who was running as president as a Dixiecrat, he said, there's not enough troops in the Army to force the southern people to break down segregation - I'll omit a word he said - and admit - essentially, he was saying black people - into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches. It was always top-of-mind in racist America.

MARTIN: What is it about the swimming pool, Jeff, that was such as flashpoint for these racial tensions?

Dr. WILTSE: Yeah, there - excuse me. There are two things. One is, well, I mean, basically it boils down to swimming polls being very intimate spaces, both physically intimate and also visually intimate. And so physically intimate, in the sense that you're sharing the same water. And there has always been fears, in terms of using swimming pools, about being exposed to the dirt and the disease of other swimmers.

Mister Rogers was unparallelled in his ability to comment on politically charged flashpoints in a gentle, kind, and encouraging way.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:33 AM on March 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

he and Mister Rogers soaked their feet together in a wading pool and Rogers then dried Clemmons feet on camera -- a moment of enormous symbolism in 1968

The obvious Christian symbolism of this act would have been a deliberate choice by Rogers as well, I assume.
posted by Think_Long at 11:09 AM on March 11, 2016 [26 favorites]

Being atheist, the idea of an angel walking among humans is worth a chuckle, but little more.

Fred Rogers gives me pause, though.
posted by Mooski at 11:09 AM on March 11, 2016 [36 favorites]

I heard this on NPR this morning. Every time I think I'm sick of StoryCorps and of getting dust motes in my eye, they do it again. Fantastic story. So many feels. Especially this part:

KL: You were on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for a long time…

FC: Yeah, I discovered a friend for life. I’ll never forget one day I was watching him film a session. And you know how at the end of the program he takes his sneakers off, hangs up his sweater and he says, “You make every day a special day just by being you, and I like you just the way you are?” I was looking at him when he was saying that, and he walks over to where I was standing. And I said, “Fred were you talking to me?” And he said, “Yes, I have been talking to you for years. But you heard me today.” It was like telling me I’m OK as a human being. That was one of the most meaningful experiences I’d ever had.
posted by freecellwizard at 12:01 PM on March 11, 2016 [30 favorites]

...life-long friendship with Fred Rogers.

I firmly believe that the only difference between a friend and a life-long friend of Mr. Rogers is that the life-long friends simply had the opportunity and the willingness to keep in touch with him. And that the difference between Mr. Rogers' friends and non-friends is that his non-friends were people he hadn't yet met.
posted by VTX at 12:41 PM on March 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

Is there a secular sort of sainthood we can give people like Fred Rogers? Some way that the world can know about him, and everyone in the world know about other people like him? His example just needs to be spread everywhere, I feel.

When the concept of who a bodhisattva would be was explained to me, the first person I thought of was Fred Rogers.
posted by droplet at 3:13 PM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

I heard this on the way to work this morning. It really is worth a listen.

And I said, “Fred were you talking to me?” And he said, “Yes, I have been talking to you for years. But you heard me today.”

StoryCorps finds yet another way to make a room dusty.
posted by azpenguin at 4:16 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I heard this as well this morning. It made my day.
posted by 4ster at 5:42 PM on March 11, 2016

Don't think a secular sainthood is necessary -- stuff like this was a clear and deliberate expression of Rogers' Christian faith.
posted by BurntHombre at 7:32 PM on March 11, 2016

143
posted by NortonDC at 7:41 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

One of my favorite facts about Fred Rogers was that after finishing seminary (that he attended during his lunch breaks), he wasn't ordained as a normal minister but was tasked with continuing his work with children's television. It says a lot about someone that a church (or any organization) would say, "What you are already doing is the best thing you can do to make the world a better place".
posted by msingle at 8:40 PM on March 11, 2016

What a beautiful story of friendship and acceptance. It makes me feel really good to see what an accomplished life Francois has enjoyed. Mr. Rogers was kind of like an angel here on earth.
posted by Kangaroo at 6:34 AM on March 12, 2016

Mister Rogers was unparallelled in his ability to comment on politically charged flashpoints in a gentle, kind, and encouraging way.

Can you imagine what certain people who dominate the news would say about him today?

I can't remember a single StoryCorps that hasn't made me cry. Dammit.
posted by DigDoug at 12:45 PM on March 12, 2016

Don't think a secular sainthood is necessary -- stuff like this was a clear and deliberate expression of Rogers' Christian faith.

This is true and yet hid did it is such a secular way that some sort of secular recognition might be warranted.
posted by VTX at 5:47 PM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]