Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's Carvel and before we get into this episode,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a favor. Throughout this series,
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about how Fred Rogers has helped
Speaker 1: show us how to make the world a kinder place,
Speaker 1: a better place. But now we want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: We want to hear a story about when someone in
Speaker 1: your life showed you what it means to be a helper.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's someone in your family, or someone in your community,
Speaker 1: or someone that you haven't seen since you were a kid,
Speaker 1: but that you still think about something they did to
Speaker 1: help you. Whoever they are, wherever they are, however they're helping,
Speaker 1: we want to hear about it. So give us a
Speaker 1: call at three three six five one five zero five
Speaker 1: to nine. Again, that's three three six five one five
Speaker 1: zero five to nine, and tell us a story about
Speaker 1: someone who has shown you how to be a helper
Speaker 1: and we might just play it on an upcoming episode.
Speaker 1: Again that number is three three six five one five
Speaker 1: zero five two nine, or you can tweet you're still
Speaker 1: with the hashtag finding Fred. Okay, now, let's start the
Speaker 1: show about a nash studio that sounds studio. Well, that's
Speaker 1: very much like the place we make our television visits.
Speaker 1: It's and Mr Rogers is in Moscow. Here would you
Speaker 1: like to play? Of course I would. I'd love to
Speaker 1: touch a piano wherever I go. My neighbor by, the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union had just begun opening up dialogue with the US,
Speaker 1: and that somehow landed Mr Rogers on the set of
Speaker 1: good Night, Little Ones, the USSRS longest running children's program.
Speaker 1: Back then, there was no television except for one channel
Speaker 1: that was played on in Russian, which I couldn't understand,
Speaker 1: mostly the news propaganda, and then there was a childhood
Speaker 1: program that played at night that I also couldn't understand.
Speaker 1: Kristof Putzel was an American kid living in Moscow at
Speaker 1: the time. Both my parents were journalists. They were assigned
Speaker 1: to cover what ended up being the collapse of the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union. My parents job was to make sense of
Speaker 1: a place that didn't make a lot of sense, where
Speaker 1: information was controlled. Kristof's father was the bureau chief for
Speaker 1: the Associated Press. His mother was the deputy bureau chief
Speaker 1: for Time magazine. They moved to Moscow in and took
Speaker 1: seven year old Kristof and his sister along with them.
Speaker 1: My parents had told me that the biggest toy store
Speaker 1: in the entire Soviet Union was across the street from
Speaker 1: our house. This was the way they tempted me to
Speaker 1: go there and greeted this whole thing as a seven
Speaker 1: year old. And let me tell you, it was the
Speaker 1: first time ever gone to a toy storey. Anyway, it's
Speaker 1: nothing I wanted to buy, because there was nothing on
Speaker 1: the shelves. Um, there was I think shoes, some clothes,
Speaker 1: and a couple of tin toy things and some really
Speaker 1: complicated models that I think we're for adults. And that
Speaker 1: was it. That's the biggest toy store. Seven. It's nothing
Speaker 1: I wanted. I'm Carlo Wallace and this is Finding Fred,
Speaker 1: a podcast about Fred Rogers from I Heart Media and
Speaker 1: Fatherly and partnership with Transmitter Media. We often talk about
Speaker 1: how adaptable kids are, but Kristoff says, the move to
Speaker 1: Moscow was really hard. Frankly, I was pretty depressed. Um,
Speaker 1: you just have to understand just how hard Russia was
Speaker 1: in the eighties, especially for a kid, you know, it
Speaker 1: being so cold, dark, no access to stuff. Um. Sometimes
Speaker 1: friends would record like tapes, the cassette tapes and then
Speaker 1: mail them and I would listen to their voices. We
Speaker 1: didn't live in an embassy. We lived in a square
Speaker 1: foot apartment. My mom, my dad, my sister, myself, and
Speaker 1: our Golden retriever, only golden retriever in the entire civic union.
Speaker 1: People thought that it was a lion. Our apartment was
Speaker 1: bugged because the KGB always kept a close eye on them,
Speaker 1: and they would follow us anytime we were going outside
Speaker 1: of the city. They would constantly try to attempt to
Speaker 1: set up my parents to see if they were actually spies,
Speaker 1: and always monitored whatever stories they're working on. There was
Speaker 1: always somebody watching and nothing to watch on TV, no
Speaker 1: familiar cultural touchstones like Sesame Street or three to one contact.
Speaker 1: So I would watch the same VHS tapes over and
Speaker 1: over and over again that people would mail from the US.
Speaker 1: They just tape whatever was on TV and mail it.
Speaker 1: We'd get it three, four or five months later, if
Speaker 1: we got it at all. And those were like gold
Speaker 1: I like you, Yes, I do, I like you. And
Speaker 1: on a few of those precious VHS tapes were old
Speaker 1: episodes of Mr Rogers Neighborhood. Certainly do I'm glad you
Speaker 1: were with me on my swing. So Mr Rogers in
Speaker 1: Moscow was big news, and Christoph's parents managed to get
Speaker 1: word to Fred telling him about their depressed kid. And
Speaker 1: for Fred Rogers, a note about a sad child was
Speaker 1: like the bat signal. There was one day when my
Speaker 1: parents told me to make sure I was home for dinner,
Speaker 1: which I always was, but I remember being weird. They're like,
Speaker 1: now there's a special dinner tonight. I just remember a
Speaker 1: knock on the door and I'd sort of gotten used
Speaker 1: to being let down by surprise as of them trying
Speaker 1: to like cheer us up in communist Moscow, you know.
Speaker 1: And I opened the door and there's Mr Rodgers in
Speaker 1: his card again and the blue shoes, and my jaw
Speaker 1: apparently just dropped. I remember just being awe struck. I
Speaker 1: didn't understand why Mr Rogers was at my door. I
Speaker 1: grew up watching Mr Rogers. I knew every character. I
Speaker 1: knew I've probably had seen every episode at least for
Speaker 1: that time frame. Um, And so there I was, and
Speaker 1: he walks in the door, and he gets down to
Speaker 1: my eye level and shakes my hand and introduces himself
Speaker 1: as Fred Rogers and asked what my name was. And
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I could get the words
Speaker 1: out of my mouth because Mr Rodgers in the apartment,
Speaker 1: and um, it was just him on his own and
Speaker 1: just by himself. I think it was the first time
Speaker 1: in my life where I felt seen by an adult,
Speaker 1: like when he got down to my eye level, introduced
Speaker 1: himself and looked me in the eye. Of course I've
Speaker 1: had adults introduced themselves to me a million times up
Speaker 1: to that point and asked me what my name was,
Speaker 1: But the way that he looked at me, I felt
Speaker 1: like you saw me. Then he came into the living
Speaker 1: room and we sat down and he opened up his suitcase.
Speaker 1: He had a suitcase with him. I feel like it
Speaker 1: was a briefcase, but it must have been bigger than that. Um.
Speaker 1: And he opens it up and they're all the puppets
Speaker 1: I had never put together that Mr Rodgers did the
Speaker 1: voices I had didn't And so suddenly they were talking
Speaker 1: and I had King Friday and um and actually owl
Speaker 1: in my on my couch. This is a real moment
Speaker 1: for a child, you know. And UM, I think what
Speaker 1: just really struck me about it was how normal it felt.
Speaker 1: I mean, not normal, what's the word. UM, It's while
Speaker 1: it felt surreal, it felt like I was in I
Speaker 1: was in the Land of make Believe. Suddenly my couch
Speaker 1: suddenly turned into that in my apartment, and um, it
Speaker 1: was just like the show. I mean, he was wearing
Speaker 1: the same stuff. This isn't a like since it set.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like backstage he was. He had the cardigan
Speaker 1: on and the blue shoes. Like, I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: I'm just really struck by the kind of person you
Speaker 1: have to be, the kind of self possession you have
Speaker 1: to have to just walk into some strangers houses and
Speaker 1: spend the evening with them, like we don't, like, we
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know how to do that. I'm like, like,
Speaker 1: ostensibly my job is to be charismatic in public, and
Speaker 1: I still don't don't know if I would know how
Speaker 1: to just go into someone's house with nothing but myself
Speaker 1: and his suitcase of puppets to spend the evening with
Speaker 1: them and their family. I have kids, and oftentimes I
Speaker 1: think about the ways in which illusions are created for
Speaker 1: them and also shattered for them. And so it's a
Speaker 1: tailor as old as time that like the kid has
Speaker 1: someone that they they have idolized and television, then they
Speaker 1: meet them and then the person is not who they
Speaker 1: thought they were, and they're crushed. And you had the
Speaker 1: opposite experience. You you sort of thought this guy was fine,
Speaker 1: and then you meet him and you find out that
Speaker 1: he's exactly who as good as he says he is.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if you ever felt let down. Later,
Speaker 1: mom one time took me to the set of Sesame
Speaker 1: Street because she was working on a story for Time magazine.
Speaker 1: And I went and I was horrified because Big Bird
Speaker 1: was walking around without the top, you know, just the legs,
Speaker 1: and the muppets were all like, you know, like lying
Speaker 1: there corpses, and and they'd warned my mom, they said,
Speaker 1: you know, credit, they said, we don't usually encourage children
Speaker 1: to come here. And it was a little jarring. Um.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't the case with Mr Rodgers. More from
Speaker 1: Kristoff in just a moment, Mr Rogers visit has stuck
Speaker 1: with Christop. It's not just that Mr Rogers got down
Speaker 1: on one knee and looked him in the eye, or
Speaker 1: that he got to play with King Friday and X
Speaker 1: the Owl. It's the kindness of Mr Rogers, the effort
Speaker 1: Fred made in the midst of a busy trip to
Speaker 1: help a kid like I mean, just think about this
Speaker 1: for a second. He when all the way across town
Speaker 1: in a city he didn't know, which is a hard
Speaker 1: place to get around, to meet a family that he
Speaker 1: didn't know, just because he heard that there were some
Speaker 1: kids that were kind of having a tough time. So
Speaker 1: why do you think he did that. It's a really
Speaker 1: good question. I think that he heard that there were
Speaker 1: some kids that, uh grew up watching the show and
Speaker 1: we're having I think a tough time. There wasn't a
Speaker 1: whole lot of stuff to look forward to, and then
Speaker 1: it would be amazing if he would meet them, and
Speaker 1: he apparently just jumped at the opportunity. And so of course,
Speaker 1: you know, um, you can imagine a number of people
Speaker 1: that might want to meet Fred Rodgers or I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe no one asked him. Yeah, he just came and
Speaker 1: did it. And he spent real time. He like sat
Speaker 1: on the couch and did a whole puppet show and
Speaker 1: I played with them, like I got to hold I
Speaker 1: mean that was crazy. I mean I got to hold
Speaker 1: the king and the owl and the cat and like like.
Speaker 1: And then he had dinner with us and then we
Speaker 1: drove him back to the mayor an embassy where he
Speaker 1: was staying, and so I sat in the back seat
Speaker 1: of our station wagon. It was one of the only
Speaker 1: subarus in the entire Soviet Union, and we sat in
Speaker 1: the backseat and I just sat there with Mr Rogers
Speaker 1: as we drove him across town and drove him to
Speaker 1: the front of marrin Amazon Oh. And he was asking
Speaker 1: questions because he didn't know anything about Moscow. So when
Speaker 1: we're driving, he was asking questions about what's this, what's this?
Speaker 1: I knew the answers like. I was like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: um you know, that's the monument to your your gagar
Speaker 1: And he was like, oh, that's interesting. Or do you
Speaker 1: like space? I was like, yeah, I like space. I
Speaker 1: remember just wanting, like always fantasizing about friends coming so
Speaker 1: I could tell them about what this place was like.
Speaker 1: And I'd be like, I know this looks weird, but
Speaker 1: look at this. This is you know, look, yes, it's
Speaker 1: normal to see like an entire army going down the street,
Speaker 1: you know, like, oh yeah, we see tanks all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they parade these missiles around constantly. Like I
Speaker 1: know it looks nuts, but that's what life is here.
Speaker 1: And it never happened, because no one ever came to visit.
Speaker 1: And I got to give that to to Mr Rodgers.
Speaker 1: He must have known that just by him being there
Speaker 1: this was had suddenly transformed Moscow, a place that I
Speaker 1: hated as a child, into the most magical place I've
Speaker 1: ever been. And then got to ride through Moscow with
Speaker 1: Mr Rogers and point out all this stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: I still look back at that, it's like it was
Speaker 1: just magical when I was a kid. As odd as
Speaker 1: it sounds, I did the exact same thing. I imagined
Speaker 1: Ricky Ricardo, for some reason, time traveling from the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties to my childhood in the eighties and letting me
Speaker 1: explain everything to him Walkman and pac Man and Prince.
Speaker 1: I think now that that was a cure for a
Speaker 1: kind of loneliness that I felt. That Kristof felt that
Speaker 1: maybe a lot of kids feel this world is so
Speaker 1: big and some many things are happening to us all
Speaker 1: the time. We feel sometimes like we're little helpless creatures
Speaker 1: in the midst of all of it. So maybe it's
Speaker 1: just really nice to think that there's someone somewhere who
Speaker 1: cares what you like. Specifically, you are seeing and experiencing
Speaker 1: That's the gift that Fred Rogers gave to Christophe that night,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's the gift he gave to all of us.
Speaker 1: You know. I have this really, this weird question that's
Speaker 1: been on my mind. Was I think a lot about
Speaker 1: good people and what makes a good person, and so
Speaker 1: much of what Fred Rogers was about was about ways
Speaker 1: and systems and methods for being a good person. And
Speaker 1: I I keep returning to wise and everyone like that.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you, first, do you think of
Speaker 1: yourself as a good person? I do, but I think
Speaker 1: it's taken a lot of time and struggle and experiences
Speaker 1: with not always being in the best person, interactions with
Speaker 1: not always the best people, but then also the experience
Speaker 1: of having genuine connection uh and experiences with people that
Speaker 1: consider really good. And I think that has helped me
Speaker 1: become a better person and someone I'm still trying to
Speaker 1: be um because I guess I wonder. I mean, I
Speaker 1: I have this obvious question, which is, why isn't everyone
Speaker 1: like Fred Rogers like why? Why? Like I assume that
Speaker 1: you don't think of yourself was being capable of being
Speaker 1: what he was or doing what he does, not I
Speaker 1: guess I want to know what you feel like in
Speaker 1: your own life stands in your way. It's a really
Speaker 1: good question. I don't know, you know, like why I
Speaker 1: think that I just might not have the patience that
Speaker 1: he had for people, you know, I think just the
Speaker 1: um at least not always, you know. I think I
Speaker 1: have my moments, and I've certainly been inspired by him
Speaker 1: and this memory, and I love what I do for
Speaker 1: a living. But for someone to be like that all
Speaker 1: the time, to have everyone who's ever had an interaction
Speaker 1: with you, to just feel seen and heard while also
Speaker 1: like embraced and almost hugged in a way, even if
Speaker 1: he wasn't doing that physically, I doubt that the people
Speaker 1: in my life would say that I'm like that, you know,
Speaker 1: um uh. But what gets in my way? You know?
Speaker 1: I guess that I think, um, probably cynicism, you know.
Speaker 1: I think I've struggled a lot with this question of like,
Speaker 1: what is like just unconditional love and how do you
Speaker 1: practice that even with with everybody. Yeah. So I'm working
Speaker 1: on a podcast right now about my relationship with one
Speaker 1: of the world's most wanted terrorist. And I had a
Speaker 1: connection with this guy who was wanted by you know,
Speaker 1: everyone in the world pretty much, the CIA, the State's Department,
Speaker 1: the FBI, the African Union. He had a five million
Speaker 1: dollar bounty on his head and I was the only
Speaker 1: one I knew where he was. And he would call
Speaker 1: me in the middle of the night just to chat
Speaker 1: because he just wanted to connect with another human being
Speaker 1: towards the end, and while he was hoping I could
Speaker 1: help keep him alive. When I couldn't do that, we
Speaker 1: would just talk and it started just a great scoop
Speaker 1: for me. But then came this person that I couldn't
Speaker 1: help but start caring about. And that gets really confusing,
Speaker 1: you know, especially when it's somebody that has done terrible things,
Speaker 1: you know, or supposedly done terrible things, or that's supposed
Speaker 1: to be an enemy, or somebody that you hate, or
Speaker 1: somebody that deserves to be killed. UM. And I find
Speaker 1: all human beings, UM people, everyone you know is worthy
Speaker 1: of being listened to and being and spoken to. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean taking all their b s. It doesn't mean,
Speaker 1: like you know, set yourself up to be abused or
Speaker 1: or or taken advantage of. UM. But I think everyone,
Speaker 1: all any of us, just want us to be loved
Speaker 1: and to be heard and to be seen and UM,
Speaker 1: and I think that your presence is the greatest gift
Speaker 1: you can give somebody. I just think that's what I believe.
Speaker 1: It is just actually learning how to be genuinely present,
Speaker 1: Like in that moment that he came down and sat
Speaker 1: and just like looked me in the eye, asked me
Speaker 1: genuine question and then just don't feel like he felt
Speaker 1: he needed to be anywhere else. That's presence. And I
Speaker 1: feel like when you can give that to another human,
Speaker 1: that's the best gift you can give somebody. And I
Speaker 1: think what keeps us and the second speak myself, what
Speaker 1: keeps us from doing that is it's just really hard
Speaker 1: to be present, you know. I think that we are
Speaker 1: minds are scattered with our wants of what we think
Speaker 1: we want, what our desires are, with the ways that
Speaker 1: we think we're going to get it, our relationship to
Speaker 1: the world, how we think the world perceives us. Um.
Speaker 1: We care a lot about a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: usually isn't relevant. And I think that's what gets in
Speaker 1: the way. I want to I want to ask you,
Speaker 1: um about the world as it currently stands. And like
Speaker 1: the last thing he did on television was a public
Speaker 1: service announcement after nine eleven m that was the last
Speaker 1: time we saw him on TV uh and he died
Speaker 1: soon after that. And when I watched that footage, I
Speaker 1: often feel like I'm watching a person who has ultimately
Speaker 1: been outmatched by just the huge well of capacity of
Speaker 1: for badness among people. And when I look at the
Speaker 1: world today, it does seem like so much of that
Speaker 1: badness has like gained energy and momentum, focus and force
Speaker 1: and push. And I wonder, your journalist, your job is
Speaker 1: to investigate all, to investigate the human condition via our
Speaker 1: individual stories and the stories we pursue. And I wonder,
Speaker 1: how do I even frame this question? Do you think
Speaker 1: A do you think his impact can be felt? And
Speaker 1: B do you think it's enough? God dense question? Um,
Speaker 1: I think that it's up to us. Two. I think
Speaker 1: it's up to us to allow his impact to be felt.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is, look, eventually, we
Speaker 1: can't be relying on Fred Rogers, especially after he's dead.
Speaker 1: We have to be Fred Rogers. I mean, we're grown up,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm about to be forty. I was
Speaker 1: watching Mr Rogers a kid. It's time for me to
Speaker 1: be Mr Rogers. You know, it's time for all of
Speaker 1: us me Mr Rogers especially now. It is crazy because
Speaker 1: if we don't, then we we we really are up
Speaker 1: Ship's creek, you know, like we we are in at
Speaker 1: time right now where people are so cynical and scared
Speaker 1: and frankly acting bananas, all of us. Whether you want
Speaker 1: to blame the people that are making you bananas or
Speaker 1: your bananas or whatever it is, um uh, but I
Speaker 1: think we all just need those quiet moments of reflection
Speaker 1: and it's our job to embody it. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: we can't. That's another reason, like we can't we can't
Speaker 1: idealize him either in a sense where like you know,
Speaker 1: he's gone. What we have to do is take his
Speaker 1: teachings and try to embody those ourselves so so you know,
Speaker 1: we can evolve and become one of our our own
Speaker 1: version of that love that he was able to embody,
Speaker 1: because that is what I think the world could really
Speaker 1: use right now. And we can't be looking for a
Speaker 1: savior or or I think be just sad over one
Speaker 1: like hey, there was one guy that was really good
Speaker 1: at this once, Like why go and hang out with
Speaker 1: a kid you've never met her? Family, and you know
Speaker 1: in Russia, um who's having a tough time because because
Speaker 1: you can, because you have the he had the ability to.
Speaker 1: Christof still has a photo of that night. There's Fred
Speaker 1: on the couch with X the owl, and there's Christoph beaming.
Speaker 1: When you genuinely learn how to listen and you're genuinely
Speaker 1: interested in somebody just because they're them, not because of
Speaker 1: any other reason that I think I got from just
Speaker 1: that interaction, I think that's what stayed with me. Screw
Speaker 1: Moscow next time. When Fred tells us that we are special,
Speaker 1: he meant that there's something deep down inside each of us,
Speaker 1: not to some of us, but each of us without
Speaker 1: which humanity cannot survive. Finding Fred is produced by Transmitter Media.
Speaker 1: Our team is Dan O'donald, Jordan Bailey and Mattie Foley.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Sarah Nis. The executive producer for Transmitter
Speaker 1: Media is Greta Cohne. Executive producers at Fatherly are Simon
Speaker 1: Isaacs and Andrew Berman. Thanks to the team at I
Speaker 1: Heart Media, and also thanks to Christoph Putzel. 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, you the show, and tell a friend
Speaker 1: I'm Carvel Wallace. Thank you for listening. M hm