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Speaker 1: hm hm. Mr Rogers tried to get us to be
Speaker 1: our best self. That's a phrase that you know, we
Speaker 1: hear variations of it a lot now, right, like live
Speaker 1: your best life, be your best self. What we usually
Speaker 1: mean by that now is seek pathways to your own
Speaker 1: joy and the kind of self celebration you want to experience,
Speaker 1: which I think is great and I am a firm
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: example and not like moralizing or pedantic or condescending. Fred
Speaker 1: Rogers is everywhere right now, on T shirts and calendars
Speaker 1: and coffee mugs. There's a movie and multiple books, articles
Speaker 1: and major magazines and of course this podcast. And it
Speaker 1: seems to me the reason we're seeing him everywhere is
Speaker 1: that we believe, collectively there's something in what he taught
Speaker 1: us that we need right now. But are we understanding
Speaker 1: the right thing about him and his work? Or are
Speaker 1: we just in love with the niceness, the nostalgia, the
Speaker 1: feel good. Not that those are bad things in and
Speaker 1: of themselves, but are they enough? Is it enough to
Speaker 1: fall in love with this idea that each of us
Speaker 1: is likable? Is that even the right idea? Because I
Speaker 1: don't think that's all there was to his message. I'm
Speaker 1: Carvil Wallace and this is Finding Fred, a podcast about
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers from High Heart Media and Fatherly in partnership
Speaker 1: with Transmitter Media. Fred Rogers grew up during the Depression,
Speaker 1: through World War Two and the Holocaust. He had seen
Speaker 1: how horrible people could be to one another, and his
Speaker 1: show spoke to that. It launched just months before Bobby
Speaker 1: Kennedy's assassination, and Fred made a p s A in
Speaker 1: response to it, and just a few weeks after he
Speaker 1: officially retired, he made another p s A right after
Speaker 1: September eleven. We've talked about how Fred didn't want to
Speaker 1: do the announcement at all in the face of such
Speaker 1: enormous violence and tragedy. He said he couldn't see how
Speaker 1: it would do any good, but he did it anyway.
Speaker 1: The writer and educator e Viewing, who you remember from
Speaker 1: episode two, was watching there's this video that I've watched
Speaker 1: a lot where he addresses us as adults. You know.
Speaker 1: He's saying, sometimes I see you all on the streets.
Speaker 1: I run into you, those of you who grew up
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, you know, And when I see you,
Speaker 1: I tell you, just like I did when you were
Speaker 1: very small, that I'm just so proud of you, you know,
Speaker 1: and I like you just the way you are. A
Speaker 1: lot of people who heard Fred's p s A took
Speaker 1: comfort in his message look for the helpers. But Eve
Speaker 1: heard something else. He is talking to you as an individual,
Speaker 1: but now as an adult, and that's his opportunity to
Speaker 1: say something else or to like break this character and
Speaker 1: the thing he chooses to say is I still see you.
Speaker 1: I'm still proud of you and see the child in you.
Speaker 1: And I think that when we talk about forgiving people
Speaker 1: and not believing in monsters, to me, that's what much
Speaker 1: of that amounts to, is knowing that everybody was somebody's child,
Speaker 1: you know, who has been hurt, or who has 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 me,
Speaker 1: that you know, your responsibility is to be a light bringer,
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: in giag graphie and all those things can make it
Speaker 1: harder to here, but it usually comes through loud and
Speaker 1: clear if the person really cares about you. There are
Speaker 1: helpers everywhere, people who really see us and are kind
Speaker 1: to us, and there are also people who show us
Speaker 1: how to be helpers, who model it for us. My
Speaker 1: paternal grandfather, incidentally, is a white man who is a
Speaker 1: lay Presbyterian minister. He grew up on a really small
Speaker 1: farm in the depression in rural Illinois, and in so
Speaker 1: many ways reminds me of Mr Rogers. He has a
Speaker 1: uniform like Mr. Rogers. He just wears like short sleeve,
Speaker 1: button down shirts in the same way that Mr Rogers
Speaker 1: always wears his card. Again, but my grandfather has children
Speaker 1: and grandchildren that have lived just radically different lives than him,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of like race, class, culture, interests,
Speaker 1: pol just like everything that you can think of. And
Speaker 1: he just is such a deeply, deeply kind and caring person.
Speaker 1: My uncle married a really awesome woman who didn't grow
Speaker 1: up in the church or anything like that, and I
Speaker 1: remember she said when she met my grandfather, she was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is the first real Christian I've ever met, Like
Speaker 1: this is the first person that actually they say they're
Speaker 1: a Christian and it means that they like do all
Speaker 1: this stuff that Jesus said to do right. And he's
Speaker 1: always just made me feel completely unconditionally loved and accepted.
Speaker 1: But I also see him treat other people that way
Speaker 1: in a way that makes it clear that it's not
Speaker 1: just about me being his grandchild, but what he believes
Speaker 1: about the world. And going to visit my grandparents and
Speaker 1: just meeting random people that were staying in their house
Speaker 1: temporarily because that's what they needed in the moment also
Speaker 1: made a big impression on me as a kid that
Speaker 1: I 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 not incidental that we're in Mr Rogers's house.
Speaker 1: He's welcoming us into his house. Eve's grandfather showed her
Speaker 1: one way to be open and generous in a world
Speaker 1: that seems hell bent on the opposite. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't identify as a Christian um, but I think that
Speaker 1: even though I don't identify that way or as a
Speaker 1: particularly religious person, I'm nevertheless deeply moved and influenced by
Speaker 1: a lot of Christian teachings, and one of the Biblical
Speaker 1: lines that I think about a lot is um the
Speaker 1: idea of the least of these Jesus says, I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 1: but basically like that which you do onto the least
Speaker 1: of these, you do unto me, and the idea that
Speaker 1: in every situation, as a society, in a family, in
Speaker 1: a community, your job is to find the people that
Speaker 1: are the most vulnerable and to make sure that they're protected.
Speaker 1: And when you do that, as a general rule of thumb,
Speaker 1: everything else will be good. Everything else will follow. That's
Speaker 1: really important to me. You know. After the election in 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 the 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 possibley 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. And it's okay for us to not
Speaker 1: all be Jesus, at least understanding that people are human
Speaker 1: beings and not not monsters. You've heard me ask a
Speaker 1: lot of people, how I like you just the way
Speaker 1: you 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 sin 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 caring 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, Jesus says, the poor you will always have
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: things he was saying, his presence is impermanent. The only
Speaker 1: permanent thing is that people will still need help, and
Speaker 1: we must continue to help those who need it. Notice
Speaker 1: he asn't say I'm gonna be gone, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need you to keep on crushing all the bad guys
Speaker 1: and making sure they learn their lessons. Like Eves said,
Speaker 1: his focus is not unfixing the bad ones, but on
Speaker 1: helping the needy ones. But that's hard. Sometimes Sometimes I
Speaker 1: feel like I have to keep an eye on what
Speaker 1: I'm afraid of or what can hurt me. I have
Speaker 1: to make sure it's locked away or properly defended against.
Speaker 1: The things I'm afraid of are so loud and bright
Speaker 1: and distracting that it's hard to turn my attention away
Speaker 1: from them, even for a moment. Hard to give up
Speaker 1: on the idea that my job is to make sure
Speaker 1: the bad people suffer. It's hard to do the quieter
Speaker 1: and slower and maybe more vulnerable work of tending to
Speaker 1: the people who have been wounded. I often feel too
Speaker 1: scared and angry and hurt to do that. I feel
Speaker 1: like I have too many people to protect. And maybe
Speaker 1: that's why Fred Rogers was so focused on finding a
Speaker 1: way to talk about our feelings, because maybe I can't
Speaker 1: really help people until I spend a lot of time
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Speaker 1: otter dot ai. The more we learn about COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: the more questions we have. The biggest question now, what's next?
Speaker 1: What will COVID bring in six months a year? If
Speaker 1: you're feeling anxious about the future, you're not alone. Cal
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Speaker 1: hope dot org today. One of the things that Fred
Speaker 1: Todd is that in a child, every behavior is a
Speaker 1: way the child communicates an underlying need. If we were
Speaker 1: to apply that not just to children, but to grown ups,
Speaker 1: we may find a behavior objectionable, or we may find
Speaker 1: something that someone says objectionable. We may find another person's
Speaker 1: opinion objectionable, but if we look deeper and see what
Speaker 1: is the human need behind that, it doesn't mean we
Speaker 1: have to agree with their opinions and actions and words,
Speaker 1: but it does mean that we should and can have
Speaker 1: m pasty and have a connection with the underlying human need.
Speaker 1: This is John lay Lee. He is a senior lecturer
Speaker 1: in Early childhood Education at Harvard. He spent much of
Speaker 1: his professional career studying Fred's work. He was co director
Speaker 1: of the Fred Rogers Center at St. Vincent's College, and
Speaker 1: one of the courses he teaches at Harvard is about
Speaker 1: simple Interactions, a way of working with kids that's based
Speaker 1: in part on the work of Fred Rogers. Jen lay
Speaker 1: also knows something about the dark side of human behavior.
Speaker 1: He was born in Shanghai at the tail end of
Speaker 1: the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies.
Speaker 1: The Chinese states sent millions of people who they decided
Speaker 1: were bad neighbors in their eyes into forced labor and exile,
Speaker 1: and murdered countless more. Jen Ley's parents were sent to
Speaker 1: do manual work and rule China. He was often separated
Speaker 1: from one or both of them. This was not a
Speaker 1: culture of I like you just the way you are.
Speaker 1: General moved to America at sixteen and discovered Mr Rogers
Speaker 1: neighborhood in college where he was studying child development. Fred's
Speaker 1: message of love and acceptance came as a revelation and
Speaker 1: became gen Lay's model for how to communicate with both
Speaker 1: children and adults. He told me that Fred became a
Speaker 1: personal role model too, and before we get into it,
Speaker 1: you should probably take a deep breath and relax, because
Speaker 1: generally has a very thoughtful Fred rogers like demeanor. I
Speaker 1: initially came to make available educational opportunities for all children,
Speaker 1: but over time I think it becomes more and more
Speaker 1: about how we can find people all around the world
Speaker 1: who are doing that are the kind of people that
Speaker 1: Fred would call heroes, um their ordinary heroes. I came
Speaker 1: into the field very much want to be a helper,
Speaker 1: and twenty years later I realized that perhaps the best
Speaker 1: thing I could do is to find these helpers that
Speaker 1: are already out there and do my best to support
Speaker 1: them helps exactly helping the helpers. I think the most
Speaker 1: important lesson that I took from Fred was this idea
Speaker 1: that if you looked carefully around you, no matter where
Speaker 1: you are, if you looked carefully, you will find that
Speaker 1: there are people that are helping one another. The kindness
Speaker 1: and trust and respect that are exemplified by Fred's work
Speaker 1: is visible in real human communities. Not everyone talks just
Speaker 1: like Mr Rogers or anything, but the way they listen
Speaker 1: to children, the way they are able to pay attention
Speaker 1: to not just what the child acts out on the surface,
Speaker 1: but what do these behaviors tell us about the inner
Speaker 1: needs of the child or the young person? You know.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a little bit about today's context, um,
Speaker 1: because I when I look around, I see a lot
Speaker 1: of fear and anger and frustration, and and a feeling
Speaker 1: that things are rapidly getting worse in a in a
Speaker 1: myriad of ways, and people feeling helpless and hopeless. I
Speaker 1: wonder if you can imagine what kind of show he
Speaker 1: would make today. Do you think he would continue along
Speaker 1: the same path or would he find that he would
Speaker 1: have to do something different. That's such a good question,
Speaker 1: and I can't begin to imagine that I know what
Speaker 1: he would do. But I think the underlying topic that
Speaker 1: Fred was so interested in perhaps centers around this idea
Speaker 1: of empathy. Fred's show is about confronting struggles and conflicts
Speaker 1: rather than evading them. People of different ideas, different values
Speaker 1: trying to work out their differences and still operate on
Speaker 1: assumption of trust and respect for one another. And I
Speaker 1: think Fred's work very strongly conveyed that a community is
Speaker 1: a place where not everyone has to look the same,
Speaker 1: not everyone even have to have the same interests, which
Speaker 1: who's to live the same way? Um like, community is
Speaker 1: simply a place where very diverse people get to live together,
Speaker 1: to listen to one another and work through the differences
Speaker 1: that they have. I think in a fearful world, we
Speaker 1: have a tendency to accentuate every aspect that is different
Speaker 1: between person one and person two. And as much as
Speaker 1: Fred wanted to convey the message that all of us
Speaker 1: are different and unique and special, Fred's underlying message, though,
Speaker 1: is we are much more the same than we're different,
Speaker 1: and that paradoxically, by point hinting out the uniqueness of
Speaker 1: each individual, we actually come to understand our common humanity.
Speaker 1: And that, to me is perhaps the spiritual root of empathy.
Speaker 1: To be able to see the full humanity of the
Speaker 1: person that we might fear. Mm hm, you know that
Speaker 1: is such a weighty and heavy concept in this time. Um,
Speaker 1: we live in a world in which there are systemic
Speaker 1: abuses of people, and people feel the need to defend
Speaker 1: themselves not just against individuals, but against systems, and and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times in those cases, people
Speaker 1: feel like there's there's a there's a threat to their
Speaker 1: survival that comes with that empathy that in order to
Speaker 1: protect themselves and their families and who they love, they
Speaker 1: can't allow themselves that empathy. You know, if you are
Speaker 1: a targeted group in a genocide, is their use for
Speaker 1: you in finding empathy for the person on the other
Speaker 1: side of the friends. Fred often talked about the lesson
Speaker 1: the most important lesson that he took from he's theology
Speaker 1: professor in Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, which he went to ask
Speaker 1: this professor one time what this particularly him means because
Speaker 1: the him said something about, you know, the one thing,
Speaker 1: the one small thing that made evil fall. And so
Speaker 1: he went to ask the professor, you know what is
Speaker 1: this one small thing? And the answer was the one
Speaker 1: thing that evil cannot stand is forgiveness. And I think
Speaker 1: as I read about the error in which my parents
Speaker 1: and grandparents lived through. I think of a story. There
Speaker 1: was an older gentleman that was very close to my family.
Speaker 1: He was from West Virginia and became a minister, and
Speaker 1: 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 commanders of the camp
Speaker 1: were humane to the American prisoners, and the minister, his
Speaker 1: name is Joe. Years later he sat down in a
Speaker 1: Japanese house across the table from the commander of the
Speaker 1: 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 eleven. He invoked I think
Speaker 1: the Jewish saying that essentially means we are called to
Speaker 1: be repairs of creation. And we can understand that in
Speaker 1: more broadly outside the religious context as somehow that each
Speaker 1: of us are called to be repairs of creation. And
Speaker 1: what does repairing mean? Each of us is called to
Speaker 1: be 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, the
Speaker 1: John Laigh 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 to player that it's all good.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you have you ever harmed someone? Have you ever
Speaker 1: participated in or benefited from someone's arm? Wouldn't you want
Speaker 1: them to forgive you? The idea of forgiving one's enemies
Speaker 1: loving one's enemies is a beautiful one, and maybe even
Speaker 1: an ideal one, But it's also a complicated one. Sometimes
Speaker 1: an act of love and caring toward an oppressor is
Speaker 1: an act of harm toward the oppressed, or toward ourselves.
Speaker 1: TV writer Megan Amram, a brilliant person in her own right,
Speaker 1: put this idea very succinctly on Twitter quote you can't
Speaker 1: be nice to everyone because being nice to certain people
Speaker 1: is inherently cruel to others. The viewing is right that
Speaker 1: after a point, it's not helpful to focus on what
Speaker 1: to do about the bad people. That's why I'm grateful
Speaker 1: that there are are other ways to be repairers of creation.
Speaker 1: Eve teaches in an incarceration facility. I'm using my own
Speaker 1: holiday party in my tiny little apartment to raise money
Speaker 1: for victims of domestic violence, people who aren't able to
Speaker 1: celebrate with friends and family as maybe we are. There
Speaker 1: are acts of kindness towards children. The woman who raised
Speaker 1: me used to go to the library to read stories
Speaker 1: to foster kids. She also took in stray animals, and
Speaker 1: even once she took in a stray kid named Carvel.
Speaker 1: But more than that, there is the love and kindness
Speaker 1: and acceptance that we show towards those who are struggling
Speaker 1: and hurting in our families and our communities. There is
Speaker 1: the willingness to listen, to hear, and perhaps most importantly,
Speaker 1: to grow and change in response to the pain of others.
Speaker 1: There is looking, really looking for what is special, what
Speaker 1: is childlike, maybe even what is God like? And each
Speaker 1: and every person that we encounter. That is what Fred
Speaker 1: was showing us with the neighborhood. He was showing us
Speaker 1: what it feels like to be treated as special and
Speaker 1: important and necessary. He was showing each of us has
Speaker 1: something inside of us that humanity needs, and for that
Speaker 1: reason alone, we are valuable. And our task is not
Speaker 1: only to help see and grow that valuable thing in
Speaker 1: each other, it is to see and grow it within ourselves.
Speaker 1: And even though the world isn't what it was when
Speaker 1: Fred created his TV neighborhood in even if our lives
Speaker 1: seem more complicated and difficult, there are people all around
Speaker 1: us who are actively helping to make things better. There
Speaker 1: are people alive right now who are showing us how
Speaker 1: to make it better too. A couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: we asked you to send in stories of people who
Speaker 1: have shown you how to be a helper. Here's one
Speaker 1: message we received from a listener named Juan Helloa um
Speaker 1: here in Hawaii, actually on my way to my school
Speaker 1: where I'm a teacher. I've been listening to your podcasts
Speaker 1: and it's just inspired me. And every time I listened
Speaker 1: to it, I think about one person who when I
Speaker 1: was growing up back in New York in a small suburb,
Speaker 1: white neighborhood, I was kind of an outcast because my
Speaker 1: family was a Hispanic family and we never had too
Speaker 1: many friends besides our family. But there was a lady
Speaker 1: down the block. Named Denise and her and her son Jesse,
Speaker 1: they would always always just be there for us. My
Speaker 1: father was working two jobs, my mother never drove. So
Speaker 1: Denise is the first that really took me out of
Speaker 1: the community and to be on the neighborhood. She was
Speaker 1: the first person to teach me to the ocean, which
Speaker 1: now living in Hawaii means so much to me. She
Speaker 1: took me to museums, she let me write books at
Speaker 1: her house, and these kind of moments of joy are
Speaker 1: things that I really stick with me still, and even
Speaker 1: though like I'm not the best teacher by any means,
Speaker 1: I think that that's something that's fundamentally what I try
Speaker 1: and do daily. So I just want to give a
Speaker 1: big shout out Denise and so the whole family, Jesse, Charlie, Brianna.
Speaker 1: They were all there for me. But I definitely remember
Speaker 1: just as a as a rock in my life and
Speaker 1: just show me what it's like to be a good neighbor,
Speaker 1: literally a good neighbor right down the block. I hope
Speaker 1: you have a good one and more of that next
Speaker 1: week and our final episode of Finding Fred. Finding Fred
Speaker 1: is produced by Transmitter Media. Our team is Dan o'donald
Speaker 1: Jordan Bailey and Maddie Foley. Our editor is Sarah Nis.
Speaker 1: The executive producer for Transmitter Media is Gretta Cone. Executive
Speaker 1: producers at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs and Andrew Berman. Thanks
Speaker 1: to the team and I Heart Media. Our show is
Speaker 1: mixed by Rick Kwan, music by Blue Dot Sessions and
Speaker 1: Alison Layton Brown. If you like what you're hearing, rate
Speaker 1: the show, review the show, and tell a friend I'm
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