If You Can T Be a Pine on the Top of a Hill Be a Scrub in the Valley

CHATHAM COLLEGE

COMMENCEMENT

MAY 19, 2002

PITTSBURGH, PA

FRED ROGERS

There have been many college commencements that I’ve gone to in airplanes and automobiles. This is the first one I’ve been able to come to in a trolley. It’s an extra special day for me in this neighborhood. Thank you for your warm welcome.

In the early ‘50s, just a few blocks from here – over on Denniston – lived a British woman whose name was Emily Jacobson. She traveled all over the world lecturing on Shakespeare and Shaw, and when she was in Pittsburgh she watched WQED. Early on she discovered our first program call “The Children’s Corner”. One day she telephoned our office to ask if Daniel Striped Tiger would like a visit from a poetry lady. Well, of course, he would, and that visit began a life-long friendship … on and off the air. There’s one poem that Daniel used to ask Miss Emily to recite quite often because it spoke so directly to him and his shy ways. It’s by Douglas Malloch, and it’s called “Best of Whatever You Are”. Part of that poem has always stayed with me.

“If you can’t be a pine on the top of a hill be a scrub in the valley

But be the best little scrub by the side of a hill

Be a bush if you can’t be a tree

If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail

If you can’t be the sun, be a star

It isn’t by size that you win or fail

Be the best of whatever you are.”

I’ll never forget Daniel Tiger’s relief – and many other people’s relief – in hearing that we don’t have to be anything bigger or better or different than we are to be acceptable … just the best of whatever we are!

Have you heard the story that came out of the Seattle Special Olympics? For the 100-yard dash there were nine contestants, all of them so-called physically or mentally disabled. All nine of them assembled at the starting line and at the sound of the gun, they took off. But one little boy didn’t get very far. He stumbled and fell and hurt his knee and began to cry. The other eight children heard the boy crying. They slowed down, turned around and ran back to him – every one of them ran back to him. One little girl with Down’s Syndrome bent down and kissed the boy and said, “This will make it better”. The little boy got up, and he and the rest of the runners linked their arms together and joyfully walked to the finish line. They all finished the race at the same time. And when they did, everyone in the stadium stood up and clapped and whistled and cheered for a long, long time. People who were there are still telling the story with obvious delight. And you know why. Because deep down we know that what matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too, even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then.

You know the motto on Chatham’s seal: “Filiae Nostrae Sicut Antarii Lapides.” Well, the best translation I can come up with (thanks to several friends who remember their Latin better than I) is the following: “Our girls (our young women) are like support stones (like cornerstones).” What a great identity! Being a strong support to yourself and your neighbor … helping others win, too!

In the 1980s my maternal grandmother studied here at the Pennsylvania College for Women. Her name was Nan Kennedy. I assume that Chatham inherited that Latin motto from PCW. Anyway, my grandmother certainly provided strong “support stones” for me. I think she saw early on that music was a major way of my saying who I was and how I felt. She never let an opportunity go by. She’d take me to musical theatre, she bought me my first pump organ and my first piano, and she showed up at every recital I was ever part of – even if my piece was only a minute long. Nana was a real appreciator. She had this way of looking for what was best in people and spreading that far and wide. Oh, she didn’t ignore the negative in life, but she didn’t let those who wrote about it and broadcast it endlessly in sensational ways demoralize her and keep her from acting responsibly. She was brave as human beings in every time are called upon to be brave, each generation in its own way.

During the terrible 1918 flu epidemic when the Latrobe Hospital was filled beyond capacity, she and my grandfather got a group of friends together and set up an auxiliary hospital at the town armory. “You can’t let sick people just sit out in the street,” they said.

And then during the Second World War, I remember so well her daughter … my mother … being in charge of the surgical dressing unit of Latrobe. She and her friends folded and sent bandages to the troops in Europe. And she knit sweaters for them, too – all this many years before she started making those zippered cardigans for our “neighborhood”.

As I think about the kind of people my grandparents and parents were – I remember one of my seminary professors saying that those who were able to appreciate others – those who looked for what was good and healthy and kind were about as close you could get to God – to the eternal good. And those who were always looking for what was bad about themselves and others were really on the side of evil. “That’s what evil wants,” he would say. “Evil wants us to feel so terrible about who we are and who we know that we’ll look with condemning eyes on anybody who happens to be with us at the moment. That processor helped me to understand that mass communications filled with nothing but bad news can be very dangerous … ultimately deadly dangerous. I encourage you to look for the good wherever you are and embrace it. Yes, try your best to make goodness attractive. That’s one of the toughest assignments you’ll ever be given; but when all is said and done, I think you’ll be glad you did.

Well, there’s plenty of good news at a time like this commencement. I think of all the stories that you bring to this day. I think of two of you who have worked in our favorite Pittsburgh restaurant all during your college careers, and I think of your parents thousands of miles away and how proud they must be of you! A what a proud day it is for all of your Chatham families and friends and teachers and co-workers! May you always be able to hold this day close to your heart.

It has become my custom, whenever I speak in public, to encourage people to take some silent time to think of those who have helped them become who they are today. Let’s do that now: take some time to think of those who have loved us and wanted what was best for us in life. Some of those people may be here right now. Some may be far away. Some, like my grandmother, may even be in heaven, but if they’ve cared about you and wanted you to recognize the value you can bring to this world, they’re a part of who you are, and I’d like you to have a silent minute to think of them.

One minute of silence

Whomever you’ve been thinking about, imagine how grateful they’d be to know that you recognize in your silent times how important they are to you.

You know it’s not the honors and the fancy prizes which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that way down deep we are convinced that we truly can be “Antarii Lapides,” support stones, cornerstones, ultimately helping others by being the best of whatever we are.

I’d like to give you the words of one of our “neighborhood” songs. Hopefully, it says what those who really love you are feeling about you today.

“It’s you I like

It’s not the things you wear.

It’s not the way you do your hair,

But it’s you I like.

The way you are right now,

They way down deep inside you,

Not the things that hide you

Not your caps and gowns—they’re just beside you.

But it’s you I like.

Every part of you—

Your skin, your eyes, your feelings

Whether old or new.

I hope that you’ll remember

Even when you’re feeling blue

That it’s you I like, it’s you yourself

It’s you. It’s you I like.”

Congratulations to you all.