Random thoughts on, oh, what's it called?

• I love America and I love Americans, but given what I know about both, I’m convinced right now CDC hotlies are jammed with people who are asking some form of the question: “I just saw a Tom Hanks movie on Netflix. I have no symptoms, but just to be safe should I self-quarantine?”

• I wonder what Citizen Trump would have said had President Obama in different circumstances said he was imposing a travel ban on all Africa “except Kenya were I urge people to go to vacation at my golf resorts.”

• I admire the NBA for suspending the season, rather than playing games in empty arenas, a move that hurts thousands of ticket takers, vendors and ancillary businesses. It’ll be interesting to see how the greed-meisters who run the NFL will react to the same situation. Prediction: They’ll postpone the games and re-work the schedule so that all teams will be forced to play doubleheaders with fans being obliged to buy two tickets per seat.

• I’m no doctor and I’m not sure it’s even a medical term, but it seems to me that in America today even the otherwise healthy people have a case of the heebie jeebies.

• Today is one those days I wish I was still working as a reporter at a daily newspaper. I’d be calling area funeral directors asking how they were planning on dealing with the body boom. Are they hiring? Expanding facilities? I have to imagine one or two of them, if they were being honest, would say, gee, I hate to see us go through this, but I just found out the dorky kid needs braces so …”

• Fair warning: I’ll no longer shake hands, fist bump or man hug any friend. No, I’m just going to skip the foreplay and — brace yourself — shove my tongue right down your throat. And I’m talking about you ladies, too!

• I once infuriated an on-line friend, a Berliner, by posting a mediocre joke about how they must go through a lot of hand sanitizer in land called GERMany. Who knew Germans were so sensitive?

• Covid-19 is overnight turning the planet into a place of many germs/GERMany.

• If Covid-19 is causing this much havoc, what are we going to do when Covid-20?

• I’m already so sick if “an abundance if cautiousness” I can’t wait to resume impetuous recklessness.

• The reason Mr, and Mrs. Hanks were in Australia? Tom is playing Col. Parker in an Elvis biopic. I'll see that.

• Many of the same people who last week were dismissing the virus as a Fake News media hoax are today standing in line at Costco to begin hoarding toilet paper.

• How did I get this far in life without ever hearing about Covids 1-18?

Rogers book excerpts & my vehicular homage to "Tallahassee"

“They were helicopter parents years before most Americans had ever even seen a helicopter. That’s what most parenting “experts” would say about the way James and Nancy Rogers raised the baby they named Fred McFeely Rogers, born March 20, 1928. They refused to allow him to mingle with common classmates. They spoiled him, smothered him with parental love. What this says about a widely derided parenting technique is best left to the experts, but clearly some children of helicopter parents are destined to soar.”

• That’s the lead to the new book I hope will be available around Labor Day. The title for now is, “Growing Up In Mr. Rogers REAL Neighborhood: Life Lessons from The Heart of Latrobe.”

• I was embarrassed — well, even more embarrassed — to be seen driving my ’07 Saturn Vue (210,082 miles) after a slow speed nick surgically removed the entire grill. So I impetuously painted Dale Earnhardt No. 3s on the doors — bonus points to those who recognize it as a homage to Woody Harrelson’s “Tallahassee” character from the hilarious 2009 spoof, “Zombieland.” I posted pictures with me holding my zombie-slayer knife and we all had a good laugh. Now, four days later, I’m embarrassed again. 

• A 2008 survey of 3,000 British teenagers found that no fewer than 20 percent of them thought Winston Churchill to be a fictional character. The same survey found that 58 percent thought Sherlock Holmes and 47 percent thought Eleanor Rigby were real folks. It’s heartening to learn moronic children are an international phenomenon.

• The obligation I feel toward this deadbeat blog is pure madness. It pays squat, yet devoted readers tell me they’re upset when I let it languish like I have this month. Behold the irony: I ignore it for eight days in favor of trying — trying, mind you — to score a tidy payday, and I worry the hiatus might upset readers who for the most part would never dream of paying to read it. No wonder I drive an embarrassing vehicle.

• I doubt I’d pay to see them again with my tight finances, but what the Rolling Stones are doing this tour is breathtaking. We’ll not see the likes of them ever again.

• The Hon. Gov. Tom Ridge has graciously agreed to provide the book’s promotional foreword. My favorite line: “Chris writes about Latrobe the way Sinatra sings about New York, unflinching about the gritty realities, but with abiding affection and relentless positivity about the future.”

• One of the best nights I had selling the Palmer book was a pre-Christmas signing right here at The Tin Lizzy in Flappers, the beguiling second floor bar beneath my office. I sold a lot of books, made a bunch of new friends and bartenders Zach and Aaron sold a lot of Arnold Palmer drink specials. We’re already trying to conceive a drink exclusive we can call The Mister Rogers. We’re nearing consensus that a Mister Rogers should be room temperature tap water.

• That’s a cheap shot, albeit a funny cheap shot, from three renown boozehounds on a lifelong teetotaler. But he was anything but a milquetoast. I’ve unearthed some tremendously soulful stories about Fred. Contrasting the upbringing of this sweet, gentle soul with the rowdy Latrobe I for the most part inhabit is leading to what I think will be a book even more compelling than “Palmer: Homespun.”

• How did the word milquetoast become a pejorative to describe an ordinary bore when it by all means ought to be a snappy breakfast order at the neighborhood diner?

• I do love my wordplay. When I get back to more consistent blogging I’ll probably do something with this … “There must be a baker's equivalent to ‘piece of cake’ that is not ‘piece of cake.’ Because if a baker says something is going to be a piece of cake and shows up with, say, a pie instead he could be accused of loafing -- and don't get me started on bakers who loaf.”

• And this … “Megan Rapinoe says US Womens Soccer victory has team ‘on Cloud 9.’ She's mistaken. On-going gender equality issues mean they're only on Cloud 5.”

• “America used to really watch Mister Rogers. Maybe now it’s time America began to really study him. Two Ohio educators are spearheading a nascent movement to persuade the world to view Fred Rogers, not as a popular children’s TV host, but instead as a transcendent cultural figure along the lines of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.”

• Val and I are now in the happy habit of watching old “Cheers” reruns at bedtime. The show still holds up. I’m amazed at how deftly they introduce new and uproarious characters on a near-weekly basis. Seeing Frazier, Lillith, Ma Claven, Woody and others drop in and be hilariously impactful right away is a marvel.

• One dispute: Val likes to skip the “Where Everybody Knows Your Name,”  theme song and I could listen to it over and over. I think I feel this way because the song always reminds me of home. Odd, I know, because, well, I am home.

• My heart warms every time someone compliments my Adelphoi commencement address, as someone does at least once a week. Need a speaker? I’m your guy. You may not know it yet, but I’m your guy.

• “We’ve made this our home. We’re never leaving Mister Rogers Neighborhood. After reading the stories in this book, I hope it never leaves you.”

• That’s the book’s last paragraph. Now all I need to do is finish all the stuff that goes in between.

Latrobe Bulletin announces my next book

(430/539 words)

Okay, the admission may lead you to conclude I’m a rube, but I still get a kick out of seeing my name and picture in the local newspaper. So thank you Steve Kittey and The Latrobe Bulletin for yesterday’s front page splash. 

The book is, "Growing Up in the REAL Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood: Stories from the Heart of Latrobe, Pennsylvania."

Of course my favorite part of the Bulletin story is the picture, one I don’t recall taking, haven’t ever seen before and haven’t the foggiest idea how it was secured fir usage by my Bulletin friends.

It’s a dandy. First, I’m smiling and you can tell I have a mouthful of teeth. I’d be disappointed had they selected one where I appear serious.

Here’s a tweet from two years ago this month: “One benefit about being carefree is serious people never look at you and say, "Hon, let's go sit next to that guy. He looks real serious, too.”

The picture is a perfect repellent to serious people.

The best part are the eyes. They appear to be gazing 20-feet above and past the unknown photographer. It’s like I’m gazing at either the resurrected Christ returned to Earth Biggie-sized or at a hovering UFO filled with love-starved women yearning to try earth sex and their malfunctioning computers have led them to believe I’m  the only man on the planet.

It’s just a very happy face.

And why wouldn’t it be?

I’m announcing my next book. It’s the one I never dreamed I’d write.

See, for a year I’ve been resisting pressure to write a book about Fred Rogers that’s just like the one I wrote about Arnold Palmer.

I didn’t want to do this because I didn’t know Rogers, certainly not the way I knew Palmer. And it just seemed too obvious.

My resistance is indicative about why I’m always moaning about being broke. After all, why would I want repeat something that made me a lot of money and so many people happy?

I mean, besides the producers of “Shrek 12,” who would want to do that?

But the commercial incentive is apparent; the Tom Hanks/Fred Rogers movie is likely to do gangbuster business and generate interest in what it’s like to live in Mr. Rogers Real Neighborhood, a place I’ve called home since 1992 and written about in my blog since 2019. 

That, for me, seemed like a good hook and an authentic reason for me to engage. 

I explain it all in this Bulletin story. Please get in touch if you have any Fred stories or are interest in sharing why his spirit still matters here in Latrobe and around the world.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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It was this week last year that Triumph Publishing released my book, “Arnold Palmer: Homespun Stories of The King.” In the year since, my editor has called repeatedly to gush that sales were exceeding expectations.

The satisfaction I feel over that news is surpassed only by my appreciation over how well it sold right here in Latrobe. I joke that it’s like everyone in town bought five copies. “They read one and they use the other four to stabilize wobbly furniture.”

That’s a silly exaggeration, but my gratitude is heartfelt. 

Why is it selling so well? I can think of two reasons. One of them, obviously, is Arnold Palmer, one of the most compelling men from the last 100 years. 

The other is you.

One of the best decisions I made upon landing the contract — maybe the best decision — was to reach out to readers of the Latrobe Bulletin and let you know I was eager to hear your stories about our famous neighbor. Those stories enriched my book the way our neighborly association with Arnold Palmer enriched our town.

A year later, I’m back to humbly repeat my request: Latrobe, please tell me your stories.

Not about Arnold Palmer.

No, I want to hear your stories about you. Well, you and Mr. Rogers.

I want to hear why you live here and if you or your loved ones are ever motivated by the benevolent spirit of Fred Rogers.

We’re just seven months until the release of the Tom Hanks/Fred movie, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” The movie — experts are predicting a blockbuster — is bound to have people around the world asking, “So what’s the real Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood really like?

The book I’m considering will not be a biography of Rogers or a history of Latrobe (although there will be elements of both). At this point I anticipate the book will rely heavily on my observations of what it’s like to live here, as my family and I have done since 1992.

See, I didn’t know Fred.

But I do know Latrobe. I hang out in its bars, patronize its businesses, attend its church services, its festivals and am chummy with both its community leaders as well as its happy rabble (some of them fit neatly in both categories).  

So if you know any great first person Fred stories (funny, heroic, generous), by all means, please get in touch.

But I’ll be just as pleased to hear any stories from men and women who decide to help a stranger change a tire because, gee, that’s what Fred would have done; stories of how some distant stranger treated you with extra care because they found out you were from Latrobe, birthplace of Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers’ Real Neighborhood.

I can be reached at 724 961-2558; storyteller@chrisrodell.com.

I’m hoping this book will be a definitive answer to the question, “What’s Mr. Rogers’ Real Neighborhood really like?”

To me, it’s a special place. It’s full of boisterous characters, robust natures and so many kind hearts I sometimes wonder if it’s our chief export. But Latrobe is not a fantasy. It’s not a fable. It’s not a safe space. 

It’s a real town with real people. 

And with this book, I intend to keep it real.