Speaker 1: M hm m m. Mr Rogers tried to get us
Speaker 1: to be our best self. That's a phrase that you know,
Speaker 1: we hear variations of it a lot now, right like
Speaker 1: live your best life, be your best self. What we
Speaker 1: usually mean by that now is seek pathways to your
Speaker 1: own joy and the kind of self celebration you want
Speaker 1: to experience, which I think is great and I'm a
Speaker 1: firm believer in that self love is really radical and important.
Speaker 1: But when we say that Mr Rogers wanted people to
Speaker 1: be their best self, there's something about like just encouraging
Speaker 1: people to be good, right, to be good and to
Speaker 1: be kind to themselves and to other people that I
Speaker 1: actually think is a really rare message. I don't know
Speaker 1: who is telling children or anyone be kind, you know,
Speaker 1: and in a way that is lived out in their example,
Speaker 1: and not like moralizing or pedantic or condescending. Fred Rogers
Speaker 1: is everywhere right now, on t shirts and calendars and
Speaker 1: coffee mugs. There's a movie and multiple books, articles and
Speaker 1: major magazines and of course this podcast. And it seems
Speaker 1: to me the reason we're seeing him everywhere is that
Speaker 1: we believe, collectively there's something in what he taught us
Speaker 1: that we need right now. But are we understanding the
Speaker 1: right thing about him and his work? Or are we
Speaker 1: just in love with the niceness, the nostalgia, the feel good.
Speaker 1: Not that those are bad things in and of themselves,
Speaker 1: but are they enough? Is it enough to fall in
Speaker 1: love with this idea that each of us is likable?
Speaker 1: Is that even the right idea? Because I don't think
Speaker 1: that's all there was to his message. I'm Carvil Wallace
Speaker 1: and this is Finding Fred, a podcast about Fred Rogers
Speaker 1: from High Heart Media and Fatherly in partnership with Transmitter Media.
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers grew up during the Depression, through World War
Speaker 1: Two and the Holocaust. He had seen how horrible people
Speaker 1: could be to one another, and his show spoke to that.
Speaker 1: It launched just months before Bobby Kennedy's assassination, and Fred
Speaker 1: made a p s A in response to it, and
Speaker 1: just a few weeks after he officially retired, he made
Speaker 1: another p s A right after September. We've talked about
Speaker 1: how Fred didn't want to do the announcement at all
Speaker 1: in the face of such enormous violence and tragedy. He
Speaker 1: said he couldn't see how it would do any good,
Speaker 1: but he did it anyway. The writer and educated or
Speaker 1: e viewing who you remember from episode two was watching
Speaker 1: There's this video that I've watched a lot where he
Speaker 1: addresses us as adults. You know. He's saying, sometimes I
Speaker 1: see you all on the streets. I run into you,
Speaker 1: those of you who grew up in the neighborhood, you know,
Speaker 1: And when I see you, I tell you, just like
Speaker 1: I did when you were very small, that I'm just
Speaker 1: so proud of you, you know, and I like you
Speaker 1: just the way you are. A lot of people who
Speaker 1: heard Fred's p s A took comfort in his message
Speaker 1: look for the helpers, but Eve heard something else. He
Speaker 1: is talking to you as an individual, but now as
Speaker 1: an adult, and that's his opportunity to say something else
Speaker 1: or to like break this character. And the thing he
Speaker 1: chooses to say is I still see you. I'm still
Speaker 1: proud of you and see the child in you. And
Speaker 1: I think that when we talk about forgiving people and
Speaker 1: not believing in monsters, to me, that's what much of
Speaker 1: that amount to is knowing that everybody was somebody's child.
Speaker 1: You know, who has been hurt, or who's been afraid,
Speaker 1: or who's been trying their best to learn, or who's
Speaker 1: been trying to be resilient in a difficult situation. We've
Speaker 1: talked about what it means to do what Fred did,
Speaker 1: listen carefully and speak to the children inside people. But
Speaker 1: what are we supposed to do when the child is
Speaker 1: afraid and acting out, throwing tantrums and destroying things. What
Speaker 1: are we supposed to do when the child inside other
Speaker 1: people makes them dangerous and destructive? And when that's making
Speaker 1: us feel afraid like we want to lash out and
Speaker 1: hurt people who are hurting us. What are we supposed
Speaker 1: to do then? And who can show us how to
Speaker 1: act in a world like this one here today? My
Speaker 1: mom told me all the time and continues to tell
Speaker 1: me that you know, your responsibility is to be a lightbringer,
Speaker 1: and your job is to be a door opener, not
Speaker 1: a gatekeeper. And all of us have that grandma, that neighbor,
Speaker 1: that uncle, that guy on the corner store. You know,
Speaker 1: I remember like riding the train with my mom and
Speaker 1: we didn't have a car, and going down to the
Speaker 1: train station and there was this South Asian man who
Speaker 1: ran the convenience store in the train station, and you know,
Speaker 1: whenever we went to get on the train, he would
Speaker 1: give me like a small caramel square, you know, those
Speaker 1: like little cubes, just like a no brand, no name,
Speaker 1: like caramel cube. And those are the small moments as
Speaker 1: a kid that I just remember feeling like, oh, I'm somebody.
Speaker 1: Somebody told me that I was special today. And I
Speaker 1: think that message can come from a lot of messengers.
Speaker 1: And definitely race and class and culture and religion and
Speaker 1: geography and all those things can make it harder here,
Speaker 1: but it usually comes through loud and clear if the
Speaker 1: person really cares about you. There are helpers everywhere, people
Speaker 1: who really see us and are kind to us, and
Speaker 1: there are also people who show us how to be helpers,
Speaker 1: who model it for us. My paternal grandfather, incidentally, is
Speaker 1: a white man who is a lay Presbyterian minister. He
Speaker 1: grew up on a really small farm in the depression
Speaker 1: in rural Illinois, and in so many ways reminds me
Speaker 1: of Mr Rogers. He has a uniform like Mr Rogers.
Speaker 1: He just wears like short sleeve button down shirts in
Speaker 1: the same way that Mr Rodgers always wears his card agaan.
Speaker 1: But my grandfather has children and grandchildren that have lived
Speaker 1: just radically different lives than him, you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of like race, class, culture, interests. Paul just like everything
Speaker 1: that you can think of, and he just is such
Speaker 1: a deeply, deeply kind and caring person. My uncle married
Speaker 1: a really some woman who didn't grow up in the
Speaker 1: church or anything like that, and I remember she said
Speaker 1: when she met my grandfather, she was like, Oh, this
Speaker 1: is the first real Christian I've ever met, Like, this
Speaker 1: is the first person that actually they say they're a
Speaker 1: Christian and it means that they like do all this
Speaker 1: stuff that Jesus said to do right. And he's always
Speaker 1: just made me feel completely unconditionally loved and accepted. But
Speaker 1: I also see him treat other people that way in
Speaker 1: a way that makes it clear that it's not just
Speaker 1: about me being his grandchild, but what he believes about
Speaker 1: the world. And going to visit my grandparents and just
Speaker 1: meeting random people that were staying in their house temporarily
Speaker 1: because that's what they needed in the moment also made
Speaker 1: a big impression on me as a kid that I
Speaker 1: could come and meet somebody and just be told like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, they needed to stay here for for this
Speaker 1: period of time because of X y Z. And I
Speaker 1: think that that idea of an open home quite literal
Speaker 1: in in both the case of my grandfather and the
Speaker 1: case of Mr Rogers, right like, I think that's something
Speaker 1: also that's incidental that we're in Mr Rogers's house. He's
Speaker 1: welcoming us into his house. Eve's grandfather showed her one
Speaker 1: way to be open and generous in a world that
Speaker 1: seems hell bent on the opposite. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: identify as a Christian um, but I think that even
Speaker 1: though I don't identify that way or as a particularly
Speaker 1: religious person, I'm nevertheless deeply moved and influenced by a
Speaker 1: lot of Christian teachings. And one of the Biblical lines
Speaker 1: that I think about a lot is um the idea
Speaker 1: of the least of these Jesus says paraphrasing, but basically
Speaker 1: like that which you do onto the least of these
Speaker 1: you do unto me, And the idea that in every situation,
Speaker 1: as a society, in a family, in a community, your
Speaker 1: job is to find the people that are the most
Speaker 1: vulnerable and to make sure that they're protected. And when
Speaker 1: you do that, as a general rule of thumb, everything
Speaker 1: else will be good. Everything else will follow. That's really
Speaker 1: important to me, you know, after the election in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: My kids were thirteen and eleven, and they said, they
Speaker 1: said to me, what happened? What happened, like, explained to
Speaker 1: me what that was? What is happening? And the only
Speaker 1: explanation that I could come up with was like, well, look,
Speaker 1: there are some people who believe that it is it
Speaker 1: is your responsibility to care for others and that that
Speaker 1: is and that is a primary thing, and that you
Speaker 1: must do that. And then there are some people who
Speaker 1: think that that is, that it's your responsibility to care
Speaker 1: for your own and everyone else just needs to figure
Speaker 1: out for themselves. And that is ultimately what appears to
Speaker 1: have happened last night is that some people who believe
Speaker 1: that second thing appeared to have gained more power. You know,
Speaker 1: I was like your mother and I we know what
Speaker 1: we believe. We believe that we must care for others,
Speaker 1: like that is what we fundamentally believe. We're never not
Speaker 1: going to believe that that is just who we are,
Speaker 1: and you're going to have to figure out who you
Speaker 1: are in the world. You know. I've done a fair
Speaker 1: amount of teaching in in prisons, and the prison that
Speaker 1: I teach in is a maximum security prison where people
Speaker 1: are there for very long term or life sentences. And
Speaker 1: one of the rules that we have is that we
Speaker 1: don't we don't ask people like what they did or
Speaker 1: why they're there. I know just from history that like
Speaker 1: if not of the people that I'm dealing with in
Speaker 1: that space are there because of the drug war, are
Speaker 1: there because of poverty, are there because of unresolved trauma
Speaker 1: in their own lives. And the idea that like one
Speaker 1: out of those one hundred might just actually be a
Speaker 1: psychopath doesn't make it worth it for me to focus
Speaker 1: on that to me remote possibility, when I could be
Speaker 1: focusing on like the human conversation that we're going to have.
Speaker 1: And so to me, that's that's the idea of of
Speaker 1: grace is just like assuming, even if you can't quite
Speaker 1: work your way up to loving people, which is like
Speaker 1: the Jesus standard, it's okay for us to not all
Speaker 1: be Jesus at least understanding that people are human beings
Speaker 1: and not not monsters. You've heard me ask a lot
Speaker 1: of people how I like you. Just the way you
Speaker 1: are applies to those who hurt us, who hurt others,
Speaker 1: who are hurting whole groups of people and tearing apart
Speaker 1: families and communities and institutions that do good in the world.
Speaker 1: Would Fred Rogers like them just the way they are?
Speaker 1: Eaves says, that's the wrong question. We spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time asking the question like what about the bad people,
Speaker 1: like are we adequately punishing the bad people, which usually
Speaker 1: is a distraction from making sure that the person who's
Speaker 1: actually been hurt is okay. And we've set up a
Speaker 1: society where we tend to be really obsessed with punishing
Speaker 1: people rather than actually caring for the people that have
Speaker 1: been harmed. And that is a disregard that shows a
Speaker 1: disregard for the idea of care for the least of these.
Speaker 1: And if you believe that most of those bad things
Speaker 1: themselves come from un dealt with harm, than the best
Speaker 1: thing that we can do is deal with the harm.
Speaker 1: In Mark seven, Jesus says the poor you will always
Speaker 1: have with you, and you can help them whenever you want,
Speaker 1: but you will not always have me. The idea is
Speaker 1: that one day Jesus would leave his followers. Like all things,
Speaker 1: he was saying, his presence is impermanent. The only permanent
Speaker 1: thing is that people will still need help, and we
Speaker 1: must continue to help those who need it. Notice he
Speaker 1: doesn't say I'm gonna be gone, so I'm gonna need
Speaker 1: you to keep on crushing all the bad guys and
Speaker 1: making sure they learn their lessons. Like Eves said, his
Speaker 1: focus is not unfixing the bad ones, but on helping
Speaker 1: the needy ones. But that's hard. Sometimes. Sometimes I feel
Speaker 1: like I have to keep an eye on what I'm
Speaker 1: afraid of or what can hurt me. I have to
Speaker 1: make sure it's locked away or properly defended against. The
Speaker 1: things I'm afraid of are so loud and bright and
Speaker 1: distracting that it's hard to turn my attention away from them,
Speaker 1: even for a moment, hard to give up on the
Speaker 1: idea that my job is to make sure the bad
Speaker 1: people suffer. It's hard to do the quieter and slower
Speaker 1: and maybe more vulnerable work of tending to the people
Speaker 1: who have been wounded. I often feel too scared and
Speaker 1: angry and hurt to do that. I feel like I
Speaker 1: have too many people to protect. And maybe that's why
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers was so focused on finding a way to
Speaker 1: talk about our feelings, Because maybe I can't really help
Speaker 1: people until I spend a lot of time sitting with
Speaker 1: my own hurt more in a minute. One of the
Speaker 1: things that Fred Todd is that in a child, every
Speaker 1: behavior is a way the child communicates an underlying need.
Speaker 1: If we were to apply that not just to children,
Speaker 1: but to grown ups, we may find a behavior objectionable,
Speaker 1: or we may find something that someone says objectionable. We
Speaker 1: may find another person's opinion objectionable. But if we look
Speaker 1: deeper and see what is the human need behind that,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean we have to agree with their opinions
Speaker 1: and actions and words, but it does mean that we
Speaker 1: should and can have empathy and have a connection with
Speaker 1: the underlying human need. This is John Leah Lee. He
Speaker 1: is a senior lecturer in Early childhood Education at Harvard.
Speaker 1: He spent much of his professional career studying Fred's work.
Speaker 1: He was co director of the Fred Rogers Center at
Speaker 1: Saint Vincent's College, and one of the courses he teaches
Speaker 1: at Harvard is about simple Interactions, a way of working
Speaker 1: with kids that's based in part on the work of
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers. Jen Lay also knows something about the dark
Speaker 1: side of human behavior. He was born in Shanghai at
Speaker 1: the tail end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the
Speaker 1: late sixties and early seventies, the Chinese states sent millions
Speaker 1: of people who they decided were bad neighbors in their
Speaker 1: eyes into forced labor and exile, and murdered countless more.
Speaker 1: Unlay's parents were sent to do manual work and rule China.
Speaker 1: He was often separated from one or both of them.
Speaker 1: This was not a culture of I like you just
Speaker 1: the way you are. Gen Lay moved to America at
Speaker 1: sixteen and discovered Mr. Rogers neighborhood in college where he
Speaker 1: was studying child development. Fred's message of love and acceptance
Speaker 1: came as a revelation and became gen Lay's model for
Speaker 1: how to communicate with both children and adults. He told
Speaker 1: me that Fred became a personal role model too, and
Speaker 1: before we get into it, you should probably take a
Speaker 1: deep breath and relax, because generally has a very thoughtful
Speaker 1: Fred rogers like demeanor. I initially came to make available
Speaker 1: educational opportunities for all children, but over time I think
Speaker 1: it becomes more and more about how we can find
Speaker 1: people all around the world who were doing that, or
Speaker 1: the kind of people that Fred would call heroes, um
Speaker 1: their ordinary heroes. I came into the field very much
Speaker 1: want to be a helper, and twenty years later I
Speaker 1: realized that perhaps the best thing I could do is
Speaker 1: to find these helpers that are already out there and
Speaker 1: do my best to support them. He exactly helping the helpers.
Speaker 1: I think the most important lesson that I took from
Speaker 1: Fred was this idea that if you looked carefully around you,
Speaker 1: no matter where you are, if you looked carefully, you
Speaker 1: will find that there are people that are helping one another.
Speaker 1: The kindness and trust and respect that are example THI
Speaker 1: by Fred's work is visible in real human communities. Not
Speaker 1: everyone talks just like Mr Rogers or anything, but the
Speaker 1: way they listen to children, the way they are able
Speaker 1: to pay attention to not just what the child acts
Speaker 1: out on the surface, but what do these behaviors tell
Speaker 1: us about the inner needs of the child or the
Speaker 1: young person. You know. I want to ask you a
Speaker 1: little bit about today's context, um, because I when I
Speaker 1: look around, I see a lot of fear and anger
Speaker 1: and frustration, and and a feeling that things are rapidly
Speaker 1: getting worse in a in a myriad of ways, and
Speaker 1: people feeling helpless and hopeless. I want under if you
Speaker 1: can imagine what kind of show he would make today.
Speaker 1: Do you think he would continue along the same path
Speaker 1: or would he find that he would have to do
Speaker 1: something different. That's such a good question, and I can't
Speaker 1: begin to imagine that I know what he would do.
Speaker 1: But I think the underlying topic that Fred was so
Speaker 1: interested in perhaps centers around this idea of empathy. Fred's
Speaker 1: show is about confronting struggles and conflicts rather than evading them.
Speaker 1: People of different ideas, different values, trying to work out
Speaker 1: their differences and still operate on an assumption of trust
Speaker 1: and respect for one another. And I think fred work
Speaker 1: very strongly conveyed that a community is a place where
Speaker 1: not everyone has to look the same, not everyone even
Speaker 1: have to have the same interests or choose to live
Speaker 1: the same way. Um like community is simply a place
Speaker 1: where very diverse people get to live together, to listen
Speaker 1: to one another and work through the differences that they have.
Speaker 1: I think in a fearful world, we have a tendency
Speaker 1: to accentuate every aspect that is different between person one
Speaker 1: and person two. And as much as Fred wanted to
Speaker 1: convey the message that all of us are different and
Speaker 1: unique and special, Fred's underlying message, though, is we are
Speaker 1: much more the same than we're different, and that paradoxically,
Speaker 1: by pointing out the uniqueness of each individual, we actually
Speaker 1: come to understand our common humanity. And that to me
Speaker 1: is perhaps the spiritual root of empathy. To be able
Speaker 1: to see the full humanity of the person that we
Speaker 1: might fear. Mm hm, you know that is such a
Speaker 1: weighty and heavy concept in this time. Um. We live
Speaker 1: in a world in which there are systemic abuses of people,
Speaker 1: and people feel the need to defend themselves, not just
Speaker 1: against individuals, against systems, and and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of times in those cases, people feel like there's there's
Speaker 1: a there's a threat to their survival that comes with
Speaker 1: that empathy that in order to protect themselves and their
Speaker 1: families and who they love, they can't allow themselves that empathy.
Speaker 1: You know, if you are a targeted group in a genocide,
Speaker 1: is their use for you in finding empathy for the
Speaker 1: person on the other side of the friends. Fred often
Speaker 1: talked about the lesson the most important lesson that he
Speaker 1: took from he's theology professor in Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, which
Speaker 1: he went to ask this professor one time what this
Speaker 1: particularly him means because they him said something about, you know,
Speaker 1: the one thing, the one small thing that made evil fall.
Speaker 1: And so he went to ask the professor, you know
Speaker 1: what is this one small thing? And the answer was,
Speaker 1: the one thing that evil cannot stand is forgiveness. And
Speaker 1: I think as I read about the error in which
Speaker 1: my parents and grandparents lived through, I think of a story.
Speaker 1: There was an older gentleman that was very close to
Speaker 1: my family. He was from West Virginia and became a minister,
Speaker 1: and he and his wife and son were missionaries in China.
Speaker 1: And after the World War two broke out, they were
Speaker 1: taken by the Japanese and put inside a fairly bruto
Speaker 1: concentration camp. And one of the command ds of the
Speaker 1: camp we're humane to the American prisoners, and the minister,
Speaker 1: his name is Joe. Years later, he sat down in
Speaker 1: a Japanese house across the table from the commander of
Speaker 1: the concentration camp, and the two of them shared the tea,
Speaker 1: a cup of tea, and and I just think of
Speaker 1: these things. They're almost illogical, but they are a reflection
Speaker 1: of the fundamental trust that human beings, as much as
Speaker 1: they're capable of evil and hatred, and and as much
Speaker 1: as all of us have our fears and defensiveness that
Speaker 1: in the end, I think when Fred tells us that
Speaker 1: we are special, he meant that there's something deep down
Speaker 1: inside each of us, not just some of us, but
Speaker 1: each of us, without which humanity cannot survive. In his
Speaker 1: public service announcements following September, he invoked, I think the
Speaker 1: Jewish saying that essentially means we are called to be
Speaker 1: repairers of creation, and we can understand that in more
Speaker 1: broadly outside the religious context, is somehow that each of
Speaker 1: us are called to be repairers of creation? And what
Speaker 1: does repairing mean? Each of us is called to be
Speaker 1: a repairer of creation? But how do we do that?
Speaker 1: I think for everyone, though the question is the same,
Speaker 1: the answer can be different. Not all of us can
Speaker 1: sit down to tea with someone who represents the violent
Speaker 1: forces of the state. The man from West Virginia that
Speaker 1: John Lay talked about could, but many of us cannot
Speaker 1: and maybe should not. And there's good reason for that.
Speaker 1: If someone breaks into your home and harms your family
Speaker 1: or loved ones in some violent way, and then I
Speaker 1: decide to sit down with them the next day for
Speaker 1: a pleasant tea under the guise of forgiveness and radical empathy.
Speaker 1: That may be a dramatic, heroic act for me, but
Speaker 1: it might be incredibly disrespectful and harmful to you. We're
Speaker 1: told all the time that the ultimate act of love
Speaker 1: is to forgive the people who have hurt you, and
Speaker 1: that anything less is a shortcoming, maybe an understandable one,
Speaker 1: but a shortcoming nonetheless something to get over. But who
Speaker 1: benefits most from the quick and incessant march towards forgiveness?
Speaker 1: Isn't it often those who commit the heinous act to
Speaker 1: begin with? Don't they want, deeply want for their victims
Speaker 1: to hug them and declare that it's all good. Wouldn't you?
Speaker 1: Have you ever harmed someone? Have you ever participated in
Speaker 1: or benefited from someone's harm? Wouldn't you want them to
Speaker 1: forgive you? The idea of forgiving one's enemies loving one's
Speaker 1: enemies is a beautiful one, and maybe even an ideal one,
Speaker 1: But it's also a complicated one. Sometimes an act of
Speaker 1: love and caring toward an oppressor is an act of
Speaker 1: harm toward the oppressed, or toward ourselves. TV writer Megan Amram,
Speaker 1: a brilliant person in her own right, put this idea
Speaker 1: very succinctly on Twitter quote you can't be nice to
Speaker 1: everyone because being nice to certain people is inherently cruel
Speaker 1: to others. The viewing is right that after a point,
Speaker 1: it's not helpful to focus on what to do about
Speaker 1: the bad people. That's why I'm grateful that there are
Speaker 1: other ways to be repairers of creation. Eve teaches in
Speaker 1: an incarceration facility. I'm using my own holiday party in
Speaker 1: my tiny little apartment to raise money for victims of
Speaker 1: domestic violence, people who aren't able to celebrate with friends
Speaker 1: and family as maybe we are. There are acts of
Speaker 1: kindness towards children. The woman who raised me used to
Speaker 1: go to the library to read stories to foster kids.
Speaker 1: She also took in stray animals, and even once she
Speaker 1: took in a stray kid named Carvel. But more than that,
Speaker 1: there is the love and kindness and acceptance that we
Speaker 1: show towards those who are struggling and hurting in our families,
Speaker 1: in our communities. There's the willingness to listen, to hear,
Speaker 1: and perhaps most importantly, to grow and change in response
Speaker 1: to the pain of others. There is looking, really looking
Speaker 1: for what is special? What is childlike? Maybe even what
Speaker 1: is God like and each and every person that we encounter.
Speaker 1: That is what Fred was showing us with the Neighborhood.
Speaker 1: He was showing us what it feels like to be
Speaker 1: treated as special and important and necessary. He was showing
Speaker 1: each of us has something inside of us that humanity needs,
Speaker 1: and for that reason alone, we are valuable. And our
Speaker 1: task is not only to help see and grow that
Speaker 1: valuable thing in each other, it is to see and
Speaker 1: grow it within ourselves. And even though the world isn't
Speaker 1: what it was when Fred created his TV neighborhood in
Speaker 1: even if our lives seem more complicated and difficult, there
Speaker 1: are people all around us who are actively helping to
Speaker 1: make things better. There are people alive right now who
Speaker 1: were showing us how to make it better too. A
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in
Speaker 1: stories of people who have shown you how to be
Speaker 1: a helper. Here's one message we received from a listener
Speaker 1: named Juan Helloa Um here in Hawaii, actually on my
Speaker 1: way to my school where I'm a teacher. I've been
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast and it's just inspired me. And
Speaker 1: every time I listened to it, I think about one
Speaker 1: person who When I was growing up back in New
Speaker 1: York in a small suburb, white neighborhood, I was kind
Speaker 1: of an outcast because my family was a Hispanic family
Speaker 1: and we never had too many friends besides our family.
Speaker 1: But there was a lady down the block named Me
Speaker 1: and her and her son Jesse, they would always always
Speaker 1: just be there for us. My father was working two jobs,
Speaker 1: my mother never drove, so Genies is the first that
Speaker 1: really took me out of the community and to be
Speaker 1: on the neighborhood. She was the first person to teach
Speaker 1: me to the old should which now living in Hawaii
Speaker 1: means so much to me. She took me to museums,
Speaker 1: she let me write books at her house, and these
Speaker 1: kind of moments of joy are things that I really
Speaker 1: steak with me still, and even though like I'm not
Speaker 1: the best teacher by any means, I think that that's
Speaker 1: something that's fundamentally what I try and do daily. So
Speaker 1: I just want to give a big shout out Denise
Speaker 1: and so the whole family, Jesse, Charlie, Brianna, they were
Speaker 1: all there for me. But I definitely remember to me
Speaker 1: just pining as a as a rock in my life
Speaker 1: and just show me what it's like to be a
Speaker 1: good neighbor, literally a good neighbor right down the block.
Speaker 1: I hope you have a good one, and the more
Speaker 1: of that next week and our final episode of Finding Friend.
Speaker 1: Finding Fred is produced by Transmitter Media. Our team is
Speaker 1: Daniel Donald, Jordan Bailey, and Maddie Foley. Our editor is
Speaker 1: Sarah Nicks. The executive producer for Transmitter Media is Greta Cohne.
Speaker 1: Executive producers at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs and Andrew Berman.
Speaker 1: Thanks to the team and I Heart Media. Our show
Speaker 1: is mixed by Rick Kwan, music by Blue Dot Sessions
Speaker 1: and Alison Layton Brown. If you like what you're hearing,
Speaker 1: rate the show, review the show, and tell a friend
Speaker 1: I'm Carvel Wallace. Thank you for listening.