Watch Mr. Rogers earn $20 million in 6 minutes.

“Mister Rogers defended public television to the US Senate; his testimony helped convince the Congress to increase funding to PBS, rather than cut it in half, as President Nixon wanted.”

In 1969, a Senate hearing was convened to determine whether to cut funding to PBS. Then unknown Mr. Rogers speaks for six minutes and ends with a song. The senator tells him “looks like you just earned the $20 million.”

I just about cried, rewatching this. It’s so sweet. it’s one of those things that takes me into the best of life, into the moment, into love.

What do you do with the mad that you feel?

A neighborhood expression of care.

When Mr. Rogers first starts talking you feel that all hope is lost.  His slow, mesmerizing voice that I knew and loved as a kid seems helpless against the quick retorts of the Senate.

But then he gives us all goosebumps.

What do you do with the mad that you feel?  When you feel so mad that you could bite. When the whole-wide world seems oh so wrong and nothing you do seems very right.  What do you do?

Do you punch a bag?

Do you pound some clay or some dough?

Do you round up friends for a game of tag or see how fast you go?

Its great to be able to stop, when you’ve planned a thing thats wrong, and be able to do something else instead and think this song.

I can stomp when I want to, I can stomp when I wish. I can stomp, stomp, stomp anytime.

And what a good feeling to feel like this, and know that the feeling is really mine.

Know that there is something deep inside that helps us become what we can.

Because a girl can be someday a lady, and a boy can be someday a man.