I'm sorry, but as I was perusing Youtube, looking at various clips of the late Fred Rogers, I came across his Lifetime Achievement Award from 1997. I have to share it with you, but first I want to preface it with a story...
When I first moved to Texas and got my first job, I was tasked with going to Dallas for a summer and work as a part of my training with a cable installation company. That isn't important to the story, but it lets you know why I was there listing to a morning show hosted a couple of 30-something DJs from some pop-music radio station while traveling from job to job. I was lucky enough to hear a phone interview the two DJs had with Fred Rogers. Now, these two DJs, a man and a woman, were saucy and snarky about most pop-culture subjects popular in the moment, and they were mischievous and irreverent. That was their schtick. But it only took a few words form Mr. Rogers for them to suddenly become children again, awestruck and utterly captivated by this gentle, sincere man. I don't remember his words myself, but I will never forget his tone. He was soft, and gentle, and integrity personified. He was amazing. And the two DJs were completely under his spell. The woman DJ could hardly speak, she seemed so awestruck. And the man tried to bluff and bluster, but in the end Mr. Roger's kind demeanor was overpowering, and there was, could only be, reverence and respect for this brilliant man.
So here is Fred Roger's acceptance speech.
Even in his gratitude, in a moment when he is being honored for his life's work, when he has the stage to say anything about his life, he takes the community of self-possessed actors by the hand, and leads them all, like the children they have suddenly become, in taking a moment to thank the people in their lives who have given them support. He teaches us, in what could otherwise be a selfish moment, to be selfless. And in doing so Fred Rogers shows us what gratitude is truly all about.
What a truly amazing man.
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