When I was in elementary school, we would watch PBS tapes in school like "Electric Company," "Sesame Street," "Zoom," and "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood." We had no TVs at home so watching TV was something new to us. Mr. Rogers' show would catch my eye because he would be talking in his home and say he wanted to go visit another neighbor. He would put his sweater and walk out the door. When he walked out the door, we would see a toy neighborhood on the screen with toy houses, streets, cars in an American neighborhood.
I landed in Seattle, Wash., this month and one thing that always catches my eye is the neighborhoods. Seattle is probably one of the few airports where you get a good bird's-eye view of typical American neighborhoods as you are landing. The houses, cars, streets, look so much like toys just like Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. The smallness and different colors of the houses, cars, and streets makes for a very interesting eye appeal because they seem so much like a play house area. The other thing is all the small cars that are zooming around like small bugs on the freeway and streets.
One of my elementary teachers would tell us about what life was like in the Lower 48 and how the cars and people look like small ants when you look down from a tall building. I had some type of idea then because I read so many comic books, growing up, that gave me ideas of what life was like down there.
It always makes me think about Mr. Rogers' song, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor, would you be mine, could you be mine, I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you, I always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you, so lets make the most of this beautiful day, since we're together I might as well say, won't you be mine, won't you be mine, won't you be my neighbor, please won't you please, please won't you please, be my neighbor?"
Harley Sundown is an educator and a member of the Calista Corp. board of directors. He can be reached at hsundown@loweryukon.org. This commentary is posted with permission from Alaska Newspapers Inc., which publishes six weekly community newspapers, a statewide shopper, a statewide magazine and slate of special publications that supplement its products year-round.