Episode 346: Shea Tuttle Exactly As You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers

Hello friends and neighbors, this is your host Rick Lee James, and this is a different kind of episode today because it's going to be appearing both on Voices in My Head podcast feed and on the Welcome to the Neighborhood, the Mr. Rogers tribute podcast feed. And we wanted to give this episode to both feeds because Shea Tuttle is our guest and she was coming on to talk about her new book, which is all about Mr. Rogers. And so it really worked out for both, and we figured, hey, those who listen to Voices in My Head, maybe you haven't heard Welcome to the Neighborhood, and this will give you chance to hear that show. And if you listen to Welcome to the Neighborhood but haven't heard Voices in My Head and want to hear a bit more what my interview show is like, you can hear that. So enjoy today's crossover bonus episode, and thank you so much for listening. Have you ever thought to yourself, man, I'd like to host my own podcast? Well, guess what? You can go to podbean.com/voices and get everything you need to create, manage, and promote your podcast. I use Podbean every week for Voices in My Head. There's easy uploading and publishing tools, stunning templates, custom domains, social and promotional tools, an embeddable podcast player, monetization tools, and more. It is your all-in-one podcasting solution. With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile ready right from the start. So go to podbean.com/voices, and when you sign up, use the code "voices" and you'll get a sizable discount. Podbean, for your home podcasting. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. This is Rick Lee James, and the music you are hearing is from my new album, Thunder. The title track, Thunder, is a never-before-released song by the late Rich Mullins. There are also 12 other tracks made up of original music, hymns, and readings to guide the listener on a journey journey. You can buy Thunder today on clear vinyl and CD, or stream it on Spotify, Apple Music, and almost every other music streaming service. Thunder, hear it today at rickleejames.com. Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarenes. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay, where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head. Welcome back to Voices in My Head. Or, welcome back to Welcome to the Neighborhood, a Mister Rogers tribute podcast. I say that because today is a special crossover edition of both shows together. If you're a listener to Voices in My Head, maybe you haven't checked out my other podcast, which is a Fred Rogers-related podcast called Welcome to the Neighborhood. And maybe you've been listening to Welcome to the Neighborhood, but you haven't heard my other podcast, Voices in My Head. The Official Rick Lee James Podcast. So today is a crossover between the two, and I, of course, am your host, Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that you are here with us again today. Well, Fred Rogers fiercely believed that all people deserve love. This conviction wasn't simply sentimental. It came directly from his Christian faith. God, he insisted, loves us just the way we are. In the book Exactly as You Are, Shay Tuttle looks at Fred Rogers' life, the people and places that made him who he was, and his work through Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. She pays particular attention to his faith, because Fred Rogers was a deeply spiritual person, ordained by his church with a one-of-a-kind charge to minister to children and families through television. Tuttle explores this kind, influential, and sometimes surprising man. The neighborhood he came from, the neighborhood he built, and the kind of neighbor he, by his example, calls us to be. Shay Tuttle, welcome to the neighborhood and welcome to Voices in My Head.

Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be with you.

Well, I hope this isn't too confusing for listeners that I keep mentioning two podcasts, but it's really a thrill to kind of be able to do my own crossover with the two shows today, and it just worked out so well. You have written such a wonderful, what I'm going to call a spiritual biography of Fred Rogers, and there are a number of good resources out there, and this is just another one that I am excited to be able to share with people. And you don't even have to really be a person of faith to enjoy this book. There is just so much about Fred, and that's so much about who he was, but there's a lot to learn even if you're not a person who professes. So this is a great chance for me to get to pick your brain a little bit about all the work that you've done. So thank you again for being here.

Yeah, of course.

Well, everyone who I interview about Fred Rogers, they seem to have their own personal Fred Rogers story, a way that he really connected with them in some way. And you write about this a little bit in the intro of your book, but would you mind telling us your Fred Rogers story?

Yeah, you know, it's funny. I, um, I adored Mr. Rogers as a, you know, a preschooler when I was kind of in his target audience. I watched the program. I really loved it. I'm pretty sure that I would cry if I had to miss it, you know. And I think like a lot of kids, I really felt connected to him. But it's funny because when I look back, I also remember loving Pee-wee's Playhouse, which was not nearly of the same quality as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. So I'm not sure that I had any particularly discerning taste, but I do know that I loved Mister Rogers. And what's interesting is that I I sort of grew up, I think, watching the neighborhood, but then largely forgot a lot of what I saw there. I kind of continued to be fascinated by this person that I remembered, and I think my interest was rekindled when I read the Esquire profile that the upcoming film is based on. And I didn't read it when it came out. I read it I don't know, quite a few years after that, probably sometime around, I don't know, 2010 or something like that. And it just reminded me, I think, of so many things that I found really intriguing about him, or maybe this general sense that he was intriguing to me. And so I think I just kept this sense of fascination. But there was some point when I realized I tried to think back about, you know, why do I love this man so much? Like, what was it when I was a child that connected with me. And I really can't remember, you know, I couldn't remember any specific episodes or any storylines or any, you know, specific things other than the visit to the crayon factory, which I think everybody remembers.

Yes, yes.

But I don't know, you know, and as I started rewatching as an adult, you know, for research for the book, I kept asking that question and And I still don't totally know the answer. I do think that I was a pretty scared kid. I was afraid of many, many things. I lived in a really, you know, very secure household, but I was afraid of kind of most everything beyond it. And I just wonder if, you know, Fred, he spoke to children about what they were afraid of. And I suspect that maybe that was really important for me, because he took that seriously. He didn't try to explain it away. He talked about what kids were scared of, and I bet that was really helpful to me as a child. But ultimately, I don't know, it's a little bit mysterious.

Yeah, well, that's a great answer, and I'm so glad to hear the ways that you connect. You know, it's interesting, a lot of people do kind of say, "I don't remember specifics about what he said or did. I just remember him and the feeling that he gave me and the sense that I had value when he was there." And I think that's due a lot to just maybe the way that You know, he, he really did talk in his mind anyway. He was trying to focus on one child that he was talking to.

Right.

So it was always so interesting the way he seemed to connect with everybody because in his mind, at least when he was broadcasting, he was focusing on the one and it just made it so personal to all of us. So I love hearing your story. Well, you know, it's been over 15 years since Fred passed away. And it seems like interest in him has just increased, especially over the last couple of years since they had the new documentary, and then there's a new film, as you already mentioned, that's about to come out with Tom Hanks. And there are a number of books that have been written about Fred Rogers, and I wonder, what do you think gives Exactly As You Are, your new book, a unique place among some of these other works?

Hmm. Well, I can't claim to know all of them well. I haven't read many of the new ones. I've read most of the ones that came before. But I think, you know, I approached this book from the angle of faith and with that kind of as the lens. And I think I did that in part because that's my training and my lens. That's kind of what I was interested in looking at. But the more that I spent time with Fred and using that lens, the more it seemed to me that that's a really important way to look at him. I think that Fred experienced the world kind of, well, through a lens of faith. I'm not sure if that's quite the right way to put it, but faith was very much a part of who he was, kind of in every moment. I mean, more than anybody I've ever met, I think he carried his sense of the Divine and of a Divine love and affirmation into every encounter, including those on television and those in person. And so I feel like I— well, I feel sort of lucky that I sort of came with that lens and then discovered that maybe that was significant for Fred in a way that was necessary to understanding him. Because I started— I think when there were times when I thought, "Oh, am I just putting this on him?" And then I would read something or learn something about him and think, "No, I think it's just a sort of a—" Well, yeah, it feels like sort of a gift to be able to see the world that way, if that's the way that he sort of saw the world. I don't think I'm articulating that quite right.

No, I think you're doing fine. Yeah, kind of the way that Fred interacted with the world is kind of the lens that you were trying to see through, I think is what you're trying to tell.

Yeah, it is. And I guess what I'm hesitating about is I'm not trying to equate those. I don't think I see the world exactly the way that Fred did. But there were times when I've read stories about him, for instance, and said like, "Oh, I think there's a theological concept at play here that sort of, you know, by luck or whatever, by chance that I have, you know, I have a Master of Divinity." So I have some of that training. And so I can see that. Where somebody looking at that kind of from the outside in might not notice it, if that makes sense. So it's not to say— I don't think I'm not sort of deeply spiritual in the way that Fred was, but it felt like some of these things that were a part of who he was seemed really central to who he was. And so I wanted to be able to bring those out. I don't know if that helps to clarify, but—

Well, I think it does. And you know, it's interesting you said that because even just this morning, And we've already said, you know, everybody has their own Fred Rogers story, and they all seem to look at it a different way. And I just had someone message me this morning that said, you know, we ought to get together and chat sometime because, you know, you look at Mr. Rogers through the eyes of a Christian and I look at him through the eyes of a humanist. And he said, but we really come to a lot of the same conclusions. And it is interesting that Fred seemed to just make himself so available to so many people and was so open. And yet, you know, his faith was so much a part of his life, and yet he didn't make that a requirement of other people in order to be in relationship with them. And I really love that, and it's a great lesson, I think, for all of us to learn as we go along.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Well, I think your, your book is unique for a couple of reasons, but one thing I really like about it— I've read several books and even several spiritual biographies on Fred But a lot of them are written from people who had a relationship with Fred and did interact with him face to face or in letters and different things. And I love the way that in your book you're kind of coming at it from an angle that someone like me would come at it from. I never actually met him or had any interactions with him in any way, but I can know what I, what I know from who he was. And you've already described a little bit of the ways of trying to see the world through his lenses, and I think that's where most most of us are coming from. So it automatically kind of puts us all in the same place together as we're searching more deeply to find more out about Fred. So as you did your research and were discovering so much, is there anything in the research and the writing of this book that maybe really surprised you?

Hmm, I think, I mean, one of the surprises to me was that No matter how much I learned about Fred, he continued to feel mysterious. I think I hoped that my sort of, maybe the deepest hope of writing was to come to some sort of a sense of his interior life. I think in some ways he was so available. We have countless hours of footage of him, and he worked so hard to be the same person on camera that he was you know, in real life, and people who met him testify to that. So in some ways, he's so available, we know so much about him and so much more than we know about a lot of other public figures. And yet, I just have this kind of persistent sense that he's still obscured, that there's a lot about him that's mysterious and that's complicated. And, you know, his favorite quote, which he cited all the time, was from The Little Prince, and it was, "What is essential is invisible to the eye." And I think he would say that to talk about— well, to talk about God. He also would say that to talk about the neighbor, that when we encounter someone, so much that's essential to them is invisible. But I also think it's really interesting that he cared about that quote so much, because I think it's important about him, that there was so much we could see, and then I think there was so much that we couldn't. And I think in all of the reading and listening and interviewing and all of that that I did, I felt like I covered some ground toward understanding him. But there were still moments, and there still are now, when I think, I still just don't know. And I'm sort of grateful for that. I love him for his mystery, I think. But it's also, it's a little bit stunning to me that I can't figure him out. And maybe that's important.

Well, and I don't think you're alone in that. I had Tom Junod on Welcome to the Neighborhood for an episode that's upcoming pretty soon. I guess depending on when you listen to this show, it's upcoming. It may be released by the time we actually get this out. But the people may know him from the Esquire reference that we've talked about, but also the new movie with Tom Hanks, Beautiful— It is called A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, I think. That's right. Yeah, my mind is going a lot of different directions today, so I'm glad I got that right. But he said something similar, as someone who even knew him, that he was, he was almost impossible to interview because he would turn the questions kind of around to you, and he was so interested in you. And, um, I got the sense from talking to Tom that he knew Fred, but just like you said, there's still so much about him that he just didn't know, that was a mystery. And I think you picked a really good word with describing the mystery of Fred Rogers. Mm-hmm. Well, I asked you, uh, I think it was via Twitter actually, a while back, if, if maybe you would be willing to read a passage from your book today that I just really love. And I wonder if, if you're prepared to do that, uh, today. It was, uh, from page 80 of of your book exactly as you are. And are you able to do that today while we're on the show?

Yes, I'd be happy to.

I love having authors on the show who can read just passages of their book. There's something about hearing it in their own voice, and I really love this passage because it kind of helps us see where Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood really found its footing and takes off. So if you don't mind, I'll go ahead and let you read that, and we'll just listen in.

Sure, sounds great. After gaining popularity over the 16 months that it was distributed by the Eastern Educational Network, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood aired nationally for the first time on February 19, 1968. Its new distributor was National Educational Television, to be replaced in 1970 by the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS. The music started, the camera panned over the model neighborhood and then across the porch set, The pianist played the ascending line and the door opened. Behind it was the frightened child from the interconnected community, the awkward teen who learned that he could be liked as he was, the lonely college kid who explored his feelings through music. It was the wide-eyed 20-something delivering coffee and Cokes to network stars, the newlywed who stopped to pray in the cathedral. It was the program manager from a fledgling station with big ideas and the student dashing across town to get to seminary classes on time. It was the young father standing helpless in a hospital waiting room, and it was the angry letter writer, the striver for excellence, the man who dedicated everything, today and every day, to his God. They were all there, and they were all Mr. Rogers, and he was ready. And he walked through the door, looked into the camera, smiled, and started to sing.

Thank you so much for reading that. One reason that I wanted you to read it, other than it's just such a well-written passage, is because up to this point in the book, um, you in a sense gave us a bit of a summary of what you had talked about in the book, and I want people to read the book for themselves, and one thing that you can kind of hear in that is up to this point in the book you have written about Fred Rogers as a frightened child, and you wrote about him as an awkward teenager and a lonely college kid and, um, What was it, the 20-something delivering coffee and Coke to network stars, and The Newlywed, and just all the different things that you mentioned in there. You do such a great job of sort of setting the table of who Fred Rogers was up to that point and what brought him to that broadcasting place where the show just really took off. And I think that was such a wise choice to spend the first part of the book just really kind of reflecting on who he was. So the reader gets to learn a lot about who Fred Rogers is at that point. And, and then we see throughout the book that Fred Rogers is a person who was broadcasting grace in many ways. And I love the way that you point that out in the book. And he, he shared a lot of grace off the screen too, as we talked about. And one thing I would really like to talk with you about today, because it's one of the favorite things about your book is Fred's ministry of presence. And I don't know that we always think about this, but he was an amazing minister just by his presence. And there was some really wonderful things about the man that are not common knowledge that you write about. And I wonder if we could just talk about a couple of these that you write about in the book, and I'll name them and maybe you can elaborate. Is that all right? Sure. Yeah, that sounds great. Good. Um, well, in 1968 after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder. Fred basically drove into the part of town where riots were happening at that time, and it's a great story involving Francois Clemmons. I wonder if you could just tell us a bit more about that.

Sure, yeah, so, you know, one of the questions that I brought to this book was whether Fred saw his work as ministry, and it didn't take long for me to get the sense that, yeah, he totally saw his work as ministry. But something that took a little longer for me to realize was that if you think about Fred as this ordained minister and ordained, as you said earlier, with the charge to serve children and families through the media, his congregation in some sense is his television neighbors, the people who are watching it. But I started to realize much later in the process that he also had a congregation that was, that had, you know, very little to do with television. It was just all the people that he knew. I think he really sought to minister to people in every way that he could. And so, you know, it might be a stranger on the street, or it might be a friend, but there were lots of people who had this sort of strange experience of having Fred show up at the moment that they needed something, and he would appear. And sometimes, you know, it kind of made sense how he knew to be there. And other times it really didn't. And he was just there. So, so yeah, François Clemens, I spoke to I spoke to him several times. He's a delight to speak to. I know you've talked with him too. He's a lovely person. But he told me that after Dr. King's murder, that yeah, these riots were happening and that he was, I think, in his apartment and he was terrified. And somehow Fred just appeared and said, "François, come on, you're coming with me," and loaded him into the car with, I don't know, a suitcase or whatever and took him probably back to his house, I'm not sure, but took him somewhere safe until things settled down. So yeah, and I don't know, you know, a ton of the details of that story, but François has talked about just how much that meant, that, you know, Fred was there for him and helped him to feel safe.

Well, and I think too, I've made reference a lot when talking about Fred that he was not like this weak kind of frail person that we may have the image of. What I love about that story that you told It's just the idea that like he's going into where riots were happening just a few blocks away, you know, right? And it's a very scary time. And we can remember, all of us I'm sure, different times throughout our nation or when things have happened in our city that we thought, oh, this is just a scary time, you know, to be there. And we almost have this sense— we never really think of like Fred Rogers as the hero charging into, you know, where, where all the riots are going on, things like that. But in a sense, he was in his ministry of presence going in to really kind of rescue François in that moment, and what could have potentially been a dangerous situation in that part of town. And, um, I, I just really appreciated that story. That was one thing that I had never heard. And, you know, when I talked to François, he never, you know, mentioned that story or anything. So it's just one of the, the things that's in your book that is unique that a lot of the other books don't have, and I really appreciated that. And then there was this other wonderful story, also has to do with Fred's ministry of presence. There was a lady named Lisa Hamilton who played Purple Panda on the show in the neighborhood of Make Believe, and she recalls a story that you recount of Fred's presence at a very difficult time in her life involving her husband who was dying of cancer. Would you mind elaborating a bit more on that story for people to hear?

Sure, yeah. I mean, this story is— it was so moving to me and very— I mean, I just felt so honored that Lisa was willing to share it. But yeah, so Lisa worked for the neighborhood. She worked for— I think she worked with Mr. McFeely, whose real name I'm blanking on, but he was the public relations director for for the neighborhood. And she worked with him in public relations. But then I think as often happens, she ended up playing a part too in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. So she was Purple Panda and she actually was only there for a few years. And it would have been, I think when I spoke with her, it was kind of neat because I realized it would have been like the exact years that I would have been watching as a preschooler, which was neat. But anyway, yes, her husband, they were both very young and he was diagnosed with cancer. And so, you know, I think Fred had been a support throughout his journey through cancer. But there was a morning, you know, Lisa believed at the time— she's a religious person. In fact, now she's an Episcopal priest. But she's a religious person, and she believed that, you know, she had prayed for healing, and she believed that God had healed Scott, her husband. And then there was one morning that I think she woke up and realized that Scott had died. And she was completely at a loss, not only because her husband just died, but because she had this belief that he was going to be okay. I think she said she realized later that the healing that, you know, she had sensed was a spiritual healing. It wasn't a physical one. But in any case, she was distraught and had no idea what to do and was in a panic. And then she heard a knock at the door. This was very early in the morning and she went to the door and opened it and Fred was there. And I loved— she recounted this detail. She said she remembers that he was licking his lips, which is something that she said he did when he was uncomfortable. He wasn't happy to be there. He was uncomfortable about it. But he said something like, "I was praying and I felt that you needed me." And so she, you know, brought him inside and explained what had happened. And she said, you know, so Fred is the person who was— he's the person who called the funeral home. He wept with her over Scott's body. And she said nobody else ever wept with her over Scott's body. And he, you know, he was there. She asked him for advice about how to talk to their young son. He continued to be in touch with her and her son you know, forever until Fred's death. So anyway, it was a powerful story and just a real testament to the kind of quiet ministry that he had that nobody ever hears about, and in fact, I think Lisa said that she found out later from— why am I blanking on Mr. McFeely's real name? David Newell, I believe. Thank you. Thank you. So she found out later from David Newell that Fred, you know, of course, had told David and the rest of the staff about Scott's death, but he had never said, "And by the way, I showed up at her door." So she had this sense that she— I think she said, you know, "I'm probably one of hundreds of people with stories like this, but, you know, nobody knows about it." And I haven't heard any other stories quite that remarkable. But I've heard enough people reference that kind of thing that I do think it was something that happened to Fred often. He would sort of feel some kind of a nudging. He would say the Holy Spirit would direct him somehow. And he would follow it, maybe uncomfortably, and then something like that would happen.

You know what I find interesting too is it's, it's still happening. Because I, I run this, um, as you know, this Twitter account. It's just quotes from Mr. Rogers for the most part, a little bit more to do with the podcast these days, but as it's grown, it's still mostly just quotes from Fred Rogers. And what's interesting about it is it seems like his ministry of presence, even through the words that he spoke, are still living and active today, I will on a regular basis get messages from people on Twitter, um, saying things like, I was ready to end my life tonight, and I, I read this quote from Fred, and it just reminded me that I am a loved person and that my life has value. And, and I— and people will say, thank you for sharing it. And as you just said a moment ago, the way Fred would respond I try to respond in kind with, "That was the Holy Spirit taking the words you needed to hear and using my words to say it." But, you know, it's powerful to think about the presence that he had. And I don't know quite what to do with that honor of being able to share in that somehow. But it seems like his life, he cultivated a life that was so oriented toward that, that he would be sensitive. To the needs of others. And I think it's amazing the way it's still affecting people.

Yeah, you know, and I thought about that, sort of a similar idea or question during the time I was writing this book. You know, I started this process before I knew anything about a documentary or a feature film or all these other books, you know. And as those things started to surface, for one thing, that was a little bit daunting to me. I mean, just a little bit scary for it to be so much of a conversation. But I also just thought, especially when I was starting to sense that this was something that happened in Fred's life, that he appeared at these right moments. And I just thought, like, I feel like that's happening on this sort of national scale right now, where he's— we're in need and he's showing up, you know, he's somehow he's surfacing in our kind of collective consciousness. At a time when we really need him. And I do think that that kind of ministry is still going, and it's, you know, that too is mysterious to me, but it's without a doubt, it's really powerful.

Well, and you know, it's easy in conversations like this to start making Fred out to be some kind of a superhuman, and that just wasn't the case either. You write a little bit about that in your book, and I always find it fascinating that for all that Fred had to offer, he was just like the rest of us, and he had things that he struggled with. And your book focuses in on a little bit of that, and I've even talked about it a little bit on, on our show, just referencing your book. But I wanted to talk a little bit about the way that he had a few blind spots as well. You know, we've already talked about the way he would almost supernaturally show up, you know, when people needed him. But then there were other things that he was kind of just blind to. And one of those blind spots, interestingly enough, was his wealth and others' lack of it. And I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about that, because there was a few times where it seemed like he was so concerned about the needs of others that almost he didn't have a connection with. But then sometimes people on his very show, when it came to things like, you know, Christmas bonus time, he wasn't quite as there for them as they should have been. Would you mind talking just a bit about that? Yeah, yeah.

So I think, I think a blind spot is, is a, is an important way to put it because I really do think he just didn't see it. I think he, because he grew up with such privilege, I mean, his family was extraordinarily wealthy. I don't think I realized how wealthy actually until I read Maxwell King's book. Just, they were so wealthy and so powerful in their town. And so he's the eldest child and for 11 years the only child of the wealthiest family in town. His father owned several of the big industrialist businesses, whatever. And so he's really powerful, you know, and he's also white and male and, you know, and of course moneyed. And so I think he has all of this power kind of from the moment he's born. And so, you know, as we know, that can make a kind of blindness to the experience of people who don't have all of those same privileges. So yeah, he I think he was— I suspect he was ambivalent about being wealthy and comfortable as an adult. I also know that his salary was always kind of modest for, you know, certainly for his level of fame. He wasn't willing to monetize, like, certainly not advertisement, but also he wasn't willing to license you know, the puppets or other things from the neighborhood for sale, because he didn't want to be profiting off of that. Of course, that's changed quite a bit since his death. There's a lot more of that now. Sure. But in any case, you know, all that is to say, I think it was important to him to not be sort of overly wealthy himself. I think he and Joanne, you know, they lived in a pretty large, comfortable house for many years, but then they downsized once their children had moved out, and they lived in an apartment. And anyway, they were always comfortable, but they also weren't like trying to accumulate wealth. Which, you know, and I think there's a ton of philanthropy in Latrobe where he grew up that came through his family foundation, which his parents set up. Anyway, I think there's a lot of philanthropy and all of those kinds of things. However, you're right, some of those things with, especially with his staff, you know, around Christmas time, I think he would sometimes give a, like, make a donation in honor of members of his staff. So they would get a card saying, you know, I've made a donation in your honor to this, you know, hunger program or something. And it was kind of like, you know, that's really nice, but do you realize that we don't make what you make and we work in public television? And, you know, all of them are creative performers. It's not lucrative anyway, you know. And they really could have used a Christmas bonus, and that, you know, was not going to be in the cards. So I think he could just— he could be a little obtuse about that. And I think he cared about those things, but he just didn't get it. I think there were some things that he just didn't get. He had a very unusual upbringing, and I think that he didn't always figure out how to see around that.

And it doesn't sound like people really confronted him about it either, or if they did, it was like they weren't maybe direct enough about it.

Yeah, I don't know for sure. Yeah, I know that, I mean, as you know, another thing that became clear as I researched about Fred is that he was not good at all at confrontation. So I imagine that even if they did try to confront him about it, he may have dodged. As much as he talked about expressing your feelings and dealing with anger, I think he struggled with that a lot. I think that's part of why he talked about it a lot. But he didn't do that very well. And so if there was tension there, he probably avoided it rather than really learn, you know, through that opportunity. So I think, yeah, he was a little he didn't quite see as, you know, broadly as you might hope from him around those kinds of issues.

Well, and I think that's important that you point out in your work because I feel like if we're not careful we almost turn Fred Rogers into a messiah figure. Yeah. Like he has all the answers and if he was just around today it would make all the difference, and while I do wish he was around with us and I think his personality and who he was and the person he cultivated himself to be could make a great difference today. I think it's important to remember, like, no, all of us have human flaws, but all of us at the same time too can aspire to be what Fred Rogers was. You know, he was not a superhuman. This is something that is possible in humanity to— right— to live this way and to try to be people who show such kindness. And so I really appreciated that about your book. It's not too many books that I've read that go as in-depth about some of the things he struggled with like that. And I think it's very important for the rest of us to say, well, maybe I do have a chance to be a little more like him than I thought I could. So that's just wonderful. You know, we've talked about the mystery of Fred Rogers, and you've been really gracious with your time, so I'm only going to take a few more minutes today. But I think some, something that you wrote about that a few other people have commented on and written about over the years too, and I find it fascinating, is the way that a lot of parts of Fred's personality that didn't necessarily come through normally would come through when he would be controlling puppets. And, um, I, I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about that in the ways that people really believe probably each puppet represented a different aspect of Fred's personality, even if it was hidden away and something we didn't know about. And Joanne, you know, even has thoughts about who Daniel was, you know. Right. I'd love to hear just a little bit of your thoughts on that. Yeah, yeah.

So I think this was, in some ways, it was sort of a comfort because, as I said, you know, this struggle of like, how do you figure this guy out? Like, he's such an enigma. But then you actually have all of these different windows into who he was through all of these puppets, because he, you know, they were all his creations, and they all were a part of his personality, and he would readily admit that as well. I did find it interesting talking to different people that they would choose a different puppet that sort of like really captured him, you know. So Joanne, his wife, yes, thinks that Daniel was most Fred, you know, and Daniel is One of the things I love about Daniel is just how vulnerable he is and how willing he is to be sort of childlike and to ask questions or to have worries. There's that really powerful scene that's featured in the documentary of when Daniel sings "Sometimes I Wonder If I'm a Mistake." And that was not a song that was on the program very often. In fact, it may have only been that one time. But that's a song that Fred wrote and he, you know, he I love just imagining him putting those thoughts and words together. And part of that song is worrying about like, or maybe part of that scene is like, "I'm a tiger, but I'm gentle. Is that wrong?" And I think Fred was both that, you know, tiger. He had this real kind of power and strength about him, and he was gentle. And that, I think right before he sings that song, Daniel says, Sometimes I wonder if I'm too tame or something like that. And I love thinking of that in Fred's voice. So anyway, Daniel for sure. King Friday, you know, Michael Horton, who worked with Fred for many years, his good friend and was a puppeteer on The Neighborhood. He says, oh, King Friday for sure, you know, because Fred, I think, could be very— in a meek sort of way, I think he could be very controlling. Pretty obsessively controlled everything about the neighborhood. I mean, you can see it in the testimony, his famous testimony before the Senate Committee, when the senator asks him, you know, "Do you host it?" or something like that, and he says, he sort of responds with like, "I host it, and I write it, and I write all the songs, and I do all the puppets." And it's like, he does all of it, you know, and of course with a lot of help, but he, you know, I think Tom Junod writes about how many, the kind of minimum number, or sorry, the maximum number of cuts per televised minute or something. You know, he was controlling it down to the second, and nothing was finished until he said it was finished, you know, all of that. And so I think he could be, and I think he knew that too, he could be a little bit controlling or, you know, domineering maybe in his context and in his way. And then, you know, Lady Elaine was a troublemaker, and I think she had a way of kind of turning things on their head. And I think he would say the fun maker, the mischief maker, but that was a part of who he was. He was known as a prankster in college. He would, even in high school, I think he like sang some sort of raucous song about Anne Boleyn during halftime. I don't know, he was kind of a cut-up, and you didn't see that as much in his kind of straight-into-the-camera persona, but it got to come out in Lady Elaine. Yeah. So lots of them. He would say that XD Owl was his adolescent self.

Wow. Anyway. Well, you know, you just said that about him singing at a halftime game, and now all I want to see is the Fred Rogers Super Bowl halftime show. There you go. Like, what it would have been if only, you know. Oh, that's amazing. Well, there's a lot more even about that that you get into in the book, but thank you for elaborating on that. That a little bit. Unfortunately, we just can't cover everything, but that's actually fortunate because now hopefully people will buy the book and read it for themselves too. But there are some other wonderful things that I think only your book covers, like the time that he actually did a Christian episode of— and I think this was back when he was with Josie Carey still, and I'm not going to give it away and we don't even have to talk about it, but it's a fascinating reading part of the book. I want people to read it for themselves. And it didn't actually go so well. He actually learned from that experience that it was maybe better to not be so direct in what he did. And yet, his whole life was so well thought out, as you were saying, and he was such a deeply spiritual person that cultivated that kind of a life. And I really appreciate the work that you've done here. We could say a lot more about it, but I'd love if maybe in our closing moments, if you could talk to us about what you hope readers will take from this book.

Well, I think I hope that— I hope that the book offers Fred in a way that's clear enough and close enough that readers get a sense of to some extent who he was, but maybe more importantly what he believed and what he was working for his whole life, which is to say, it's the title. It ended up being the title after much back and forth and struggle to get the right title. But I think Fred believed that we each are deserving of love exactly as we are. And I think for him that was a theological conviction. I think he believed that God loves us us exactly as we are. But I don't, you know, obviously he didn't worry about saying it that way on the program. He would put it in his own voice or he would say, "People can love you exactly as you are." And I think, you know, that was the thing that was most important to him. And that's what I hope that people can get a sense of. I've been struck often in the conversation around Fred lately, how much there's emphasis on kindness and that's great, you know, kindness is great, and Fred was kind, and for sure he modeled kindness. But I also keep racking my brain to remember any time on The Neighborhood that he was telling people to be kind. He just didn't. He told viewers that they were loved. Because what he believed is that if we think of ourselves as lovable, if we understand ourselves to be lovable, then we'll understand that our neighbor is lovable too, and so kindness is a natural expression out of a place of feeling loved. I think in Fred's view, and that's his theology, it's a theology he got from William Orr, all that's in the book too, but I think, you know, most of all that's what I hope people get is that central conviction of his life that I think he operated out of all the time that we are loved, and that each of us needs to know that.

Well, that's very good, and each of us do need to know that. You're right. Well, tell our listeners where they can find you. What's the, what's the best way if they want to know more about Shea Tuttle?

Yeah, well, there's— I have a website at sheatuttle.com. So the book is there, and a book that I worked on editing too, and a podcast that went along with that book, and things like that. And then I'm on Twitter. My handle is just @SheaTuttle, so you can always find me there too.

Terrific, and we will make sure to put links to those places on our website at voicesinmyheadpodcast.com as well, and definitely a link to your book where people can buy it. And I'm very excited for you. It's a— I want to say congratulations to you as well because I know it's a lot of effort to, to write a book, and especially as the in-depth research that you did. But, but well done, you have done a great job with it. Well, thank you so much. The book is called Exactly As You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers, and I have been talking with the book's author, Shea Tuttle, today. It has been a real privilege, and Shea Tuttle, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to talk to you.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.