0:01

It is so warm in my neighborhood today

0:04

that I thought I would just

0:06

get some water in this little

0:08

pond and cool

0:11

off my feet. In

0:13

May of nine, Mr

0:15

Rogers Neighborhood has only been on TV for a little

0:18

more than a year. Mr Rogers

0:20

arrives to his house carrying a

0:22

kiddie poole. Let's now go get

0:24

the water, all right? Of

0:27

course, it's not a hot summer day.

0:29

Mr Rogers has taped in a sound stage at w

0:32

q E D in Pittsburgh, and the episode

0:34

aired early in May, so it was probably taped

0:36

somewhere around mid April, if not earlier.

0:39

Some children think that when you grow up, you

0:43

don't really care for cool water

0:45

on your feet on a hot day. And I

0:47

can tell you, as a Pittsburgh native, April

0:50

in Pittsburgh is not summer,

0:52

but I do. Yeah. So

0:56

why is Fred so hot? Oh?

0:58

There's Officer Clements. Officer Clemmons,

1:00

come in mine, want you

1:03

down. Officer Clemons is

1:05

the friendly neighborhood cop who stops by now

1:07

and again for a visit with Mr Rogers, and

1:10

he's black. Not

1:12

only is it unusual to have a black authority

1:14

figure on TV in the late nineteen sixties,

1:17

but his role makes Officer Clemmens

1:19

the only black recurring character on

1:21

all of children's television at

1:23

the time. It's so warm, I was just

1:26

putting some water on my face. Oh it, sure

1:28

is. Would you like to join me? It looks awten

1:30

enjoyable. But I don't have a towel or

1:32

anything. You share mine? Okay?

1:35

Sure. Francois removes his

1:37

tall military boots, rolls up

1:40

his pants, and Mr Rogers

1:42

gently soaks Francoise feet with

1:44

the hose that feels better already.

1:52

A few years before this into,

1:55

a group of black teenagers protested

1:57

segregation at a Florida motel. They

2:00

didn't do it by picketing or by sitting on the

2:02

lobby floor. They protested

2:05

by jumping in the motel pool for

2:07

swim wool water

2:10

on a hot day. M

2:13

hmm. The motel's owner,

2:16

James Brock, responded by pouring

2:18

what he said was muriatic acid

2:20

into the pool with the intention of

2:23

burning the protesters the

2:26

teens. They were later arrested

2:28

by Florida police. Swimming

2:32

pools remained a hotly contested space

2:34

throughout the so called Civil rights era, and

2:37

that probably is why

2:39

Fred Rogers was so hot in

2:42

April in Pittsburgh in

2:44

nineteen sixty nine. Is

2:47

that enough? Well?

2:53

I know how busy you are, but

2:55

sometimes just a minute like this well

2:59

really make a difference. That

3:05

we have great boots to fill office

3:08

with. Clemon, thanks

3:10

for stopping by so long, Have a

3:13

good day, bye bye. Great

3:16

to live in a neighborhood with special people

3:18

like Officer Clements. I'll

3:22

bet you there weren't ten white men in this country

3:24

who would share a towel with a black man. Here

3:27

in America, being black sometimes

3:31

really presented a problem. And those swimming

3:33

pools people were behaving

3:36

in a very, very

3:38

unkind way. And I talked to

3:40

Fred about that, how helpless they

3:44

made me feel, and

3:47

he said, we'll

3:49

see, We'll see what we can do. Francois.

3:55

We hear a lot about empathy these days. The

3:58

word is everywhere, really, t

4:00

shirts and toad bags and Instagram

4:02

accounts, all reminding us that we can choose

4:04

empathy, as if that's all it takes

4:07

to fix a world that so often feels

4:09

broken. But if we want

4:11

to change the world, then

4:13

we have to take our empathy and

4:15

do something with it. I'm

4:20

Carvel Wallace and This is Finding

4:23

Fred, a podcast about Fred Rogers

4:25

from I Heart Media and Fatherly in

4:27

partnership with Transmitter Media.

4:38

The entirety of the episode in

4:40

which Fred silks Francoise feet

4:42

is incredibly simple, but

4:45

it's also incredibly powerful.

4:48

Fred was a master of modeling good behavior

4:51

for kids because he knew just how

4:53

effective modeling could be.

4:57

Here he is in an interview from

5:00

I was at this nursery school and

5:02

the director had invited

5:05

this man to come

5:08

and sculpt in

5:12

front of the children. She

5:14

said, I don't want you teaching sculpting.

5:17

I want you simply to sit

5:20

with the children and do

5:22

what you feel you'd like to do with

5:24

the clay. Well, the

5:27

kids started using

5:29

clay that medium in

5:32

the most wonderful ways,

5:35

And that wouldn't have happened if

5:38

this gifted sculptor

5:41

hadn't loved clay right in

5:43

front of them. This idea

5:45

of just doing what you love in

5:47

front of people as a way of teaching it,

5:49

of spreading it, loving the clay,

5:52

as Fred would later call it, has

5:54

been sitting with me since I first heard it.

5:57

It echoes ideas I've heard in so many

5:59

disparate context. Show Don't

6:01

Tell attraction rather than promotion.

6:04

So in that sense, it's a timeless, almost

6:06

interfaith concept like love that

6:08

neighbor, or do one too others And

6:10

the other thing about it is that rather than pushing

6:13

me to become some hero, some

6:15

great leader of men, the idea

6:17

of loving the clay just calls

6:19

on me to be the best version

6:22

of myself that I can be and

6:24

then to let that be seen.

6:27

My favorite like recurring Mr. Rogers

6:29

moment is him feeding his fish.

6:32

This is my friend Eve Ewing. Eve

6:35

is a scholar and a writer and a professor

6:37

and a poet and a comic book writer.

6:39

She's like everything, you don't just be

6:41

writing, you know, I just write like essays and stuff

6:44

as well, and about those fish.

6:47

Must feed the fish. Whenever

6:49

he feeds the fish, there's like this little jazz piano

6:51

riff that plays give them

6:53

a little food, mimicking

6:56

like the actions of the fish as they go

6:59

up and like open their mouths to get the food.

7:02

Seeing this adult engage

7:04

in this small moment of caring for

7:06

another living creature that

7:08

requires just like a pause of

7:11

patience and quiet is

7:13

just so beautiful to me. He was

7:15

showing us how to be good, not

7:18

just through saying like be

7:20

good, don't do drugs, don't rob

7:22

people, or whatever, but actually

7:24

just like doing it, like feeding the fish

7:27

or helping your neighbor with something,

7:29

or being nice to somebody that you

7:32

know that other people are maybe not nice to all the time.

7:34

Tell me more about the role that Fred Rogers

7:36

played in your childhood. I know that you're

7:38

calling him Fred for this podcast, but I can't bring

7:40

myself to do that. I haven't

7:42

bigivener, he never got it and get no permission to call

7:45

this to rob By his first name. Well, you

7:47

know, that's a lot. I

7:50

think he's just you know, somebody that

7:52

I can say that's always been there

7:54

in my life in the same way

7:56

that Maria and Gordon from Sesame Street

7:59

have always been there. There's a way in which

8:01

that can sound like kind of sad that

8:03

these TV adults played

8:05

this role in my life. But my

8:07

mom was working full time out of

8:09

the house and my dad was

8:11

home with me. And he will say

8:14

quite proudly and candidly that his

8:17

strategy was to basically like have

8:19

me watch PBS all day, and

8:22

he will attribute much of my success

8:25

as an adult to this parenting strategy.

8:28

But I think that I think as an adult, I've

8:30

come to realize that that was very intentional,

8:33

That these were adults entering

8:36

my life that I could view as like trustworthy,

8:39

carrying adults, even if I didn't know them

8:41

personally. That that I see that now in

8:43

retrospect as like a form of public

8:46

intervention or like a public

8:48

service. That was very intentional. M. Fred

8:55

Rogers was one of the first makers of TV You to recognize

8:58

that it could be a constant positive

9:00

presents for kids who didn't

9:02

always have that at home. He

9:05

liked to say that attitudes are cut,

9:08

not taught. It's

9:10

what happens when you watch someone love

9:12

the clay in front of you. And

9:15

he didn't just demonstrate how to work with the

9:17

clay, or tie your shoes or draw with crayons.

9:20

He actually showed kids that doing the right

9:22

thing can make them feel good.

9:26

One thing I've learned in my forty five years on this

9:28

planet is that doing the right thing does not always

9:31

feel good. Sometimes it can take a lot

9:33

of effort to overcome habit or

9:35

instinct to do the right thing. One

9:38

of the key ways that Mr. Rogers showed us

9:40

how to be good was accepting people.

9:43

Accepting people as they are, and

9:45

that for me is one of the most difficult

9:48

lessons from Fred Rogers. It's

9:50

particularly difficult these days with

9:52

Nazis marching in the streets and

9:54

conspiracy theorists on cable news.

9:57

If being good means accepting those people

9:59

as they are, well, first, I'm

10:02

not sure if I can do it. But am

10:04

I supposed to do it? Is it

10:06

supposed to feel good? I

10:09

have been thinking a lot about just how

10:12

to understand this moment and

10:15

also how to understand where

10:17

Fred fits into that. And one specific question that

10:19

I've been asking everyone is that Fred

10:21

has this. Uh not now I

10:23

feel self conscious calling Fred, but

10:26

Fred has this. I know your parents are not

10:29

raised you to call. We're

10:31

going to let that go. We're gonna

10:34

have to edit this impost um. There's

10:37

this thing about I like

10:39

you the way you are, or it's

10:41

you I like, it's you I like and these

10:43

are these are really and this is a really fascinating

10:46

for me theological concept. I even

10:48

ask my therapist about this, and I was like, what

10:50

about the bad people? Like?

10:53

What about

10:56

And I wonder how you parse that out? The idea

10:58

that we are not septing

11:00

and tolerating of certain people's behavior because it

11:02

does harm the least of us man.

11:04

That's so tricky. Um.

11:07

I'm not a theologian, although I've spent a lot

11:09

of time around theologians. So my non

11:12

theologian reading of that is that's

11:14

the idea of grace. That's what grace is, right,

11:17

the idea that God's love is unconditional,

11:20

and that you're great just

11:22

the way you are, just just by being you.

11:25

That's enough. Now, I think

11:27

that there's a subtle

11:29

difference between that

11:32

idea and saying that everything

11:35

you do is fine. Right,

11:37

So to me, what

11:39

I hear when I hear it's you I like or the

11:41

idea of loving people unconditionally is

11:44

that. I don't believe in monsters.

11:46

I really don't. I don't believe

11:49

that the vast majority

11:51

of people who do harm do

11:54

so because they're inhuman. I

11:56

I believe that people harm

11:59

others for so many complicated

12:01

reasons that usually have to

12:03

do with some variation of they

12:05

themselves have been harmed and have never been

12:07

given any opportunity to heal from that

12:09

harm, or because

12:11

our society disregards others because

12:14

they're considered marginal. Now

12:16

that being said, uh,

12:18

you know, as the old saying goes like Jesus

12:21

loves you, Jesus forgives you. That doesn't mean I have to

12:23

you know, Mr

12:26

rogers ministry doesn't have to be everybody's

12:28

ministry. So Mr Rogers is a person

12:30

who came out and said, I love everybody

12:32

unconditionally, and that's not something everybody

12:34

is able to do. And that is okay.

12:37

You know, I think that that's fine. Accepting

12:42

people as they are is a lofty

12:44

goal. Not everyone

12:47

is able to do that. I guess most

12:49

of us can't always do that, and

12:51

sometimes it's way more complicated

12:54

than just accepting someone. How

12:56

do you accept someone when the thing

12:58

that they're doing is hurting

13:00

you or hurting your family

13:03

or your community. We'll

13:07

be right back. Fred

13:24

Rogers was a master of loving the clay,

13:26

of demonstrating and modeling the graciousness

13:29

and neighborliness that he wished

13:31

to see in the world, and he

13:33

did it on TV, where millions of children

13:36

could mimic what Fred was modeling, but

13:38

they could also learn how to love the clay

13:40

in their own way. Even

13:43

though Mr rogers neighborhood belonged to

13:45

Mr Rogers, Fred also

13:48

had dozens and dozens of television

13:50

neighbors, each of whom demonstrated their

13:52

own gifts and talents for

13:54

the toddler audience. I have never

13:57

not saying I've

13:59

always been a to sing a song. It was all

14:01

at first, you know. It's kind of like a trick. My

14:04

aunts and uncles and cousins would ask me

14:06

to sing and Mr Rogers Neighborhood

14:08

Francois Clemens played the police

14:11

officer, the singing police

14:13

officer. My nickname was Buttercup,

14:15

and the older I get, the more I love that name.

14:17

A little Buttercup. And they used

14:19

to say, body, Cup, come over here, child and

14:21

sing this song for me. And I

14:24

would come over. I sing for my aunt Clara, my

14:26

ant Hattie, my aunt Emma. Clemens

14:28

is something of a phenomen a Grammy

14:30

winning singer of opera and jazz. He founded

14:33

the Harlem Spiritual Ensemble, which

14:35

preserves and performs traditional American

14:37

Negro spirituals. Francois

14:39

was part of Mr Rogers Neighborhood for more than twenty

14:42

years, but that footbath episode

14:44

in nineteen six nine made him

14:46

an icon. I had no idea

14:48

that scene would have that kind of an effect.

14:52

Everywhere I went, people

14:55

wanted to tell me their private story

14:57

about that scene. Somewhere

15:00

having discussions in their homes and

15:03

that scene came on. They said, Mom, look, Mom,

15:06

Dad, look dad, there's Francois and Mr.

15:08

Rogers with their feet in the same pool.

15:11

One's black and once white. Yes

15:16

they are, aren't They and

15:18

their friends. But

15:21

long before he met fred Francois

15:24

was like a lot of the kids who would eventually grow up

15:26

watching Mr. Rogers, He was

15:28

lonely. Francois told

15:30

me that his parents were clinically depressed, so

15:33

we learned to look to other people

15:35

for affection and care. Some

15:37

of the things people say, Oh, there's nothing like a mother's

15:40

love, Oh there's nothing like family.

15:43

I questioned that from a

15:45

very very young age. When

15:48

my parents did not act right in

15:51

the sense of trust and love

15:53

and nurturing, I

15:55

turned to a teacher,

15:58

or to a social worker, or

16:00

to a parent of one of my peers.

16:03

They responded to me in a way

16:05

that I thought my parents should have. But

16:08

some of that care was a little bit more like charity

16:11

than love, and growing up in

16:13

America in the eighteen fifties meant that help

16:15

was sometimes suffused with racism.

16:18

The truth is the simple answer is I was

16:21

two people in one and

16:24

that was the one that was

16:26

very sad. And to know that there are people

16:28

who disliked me, who pushed me away

16:31

simply because of my color, I could

16:33

not deny it. I didn't try to deny it. But

16:36

then there were those who said, oh,

16:39

you need a new suit, Come come with us.

16:41

We're gonna go buy you a new suit. Or

16:43

they said, look at that boy's shoes. Come

16:46

on, we're gonna we're gonna take you downtown and buy you

16:48

a pair of shoes. It

16:50

would have confused the

16:53

average kid, but since my parents weren't doing

16:55

it, and I knew that I needed a new suit,

16:58

I had a sense of one to dress

17:02

decently and be clean. So in

17:05

my mind I said, I have

17:07

to wait and see what they're gonna do. Who

17:09

these people are they gonna push

17:11

me away? Are they gonna see

17:13

to it that I have a winter coat.

17:16

Francois was singing at a church the first

17:19

time he encountered Fred. When

17:21

he invited me to come onto the program

17:24

and to have a regular singing

17:27

part, I said, Fred, I

17:29

will be very happy to be on your

17:31

program as long as

17:34

it doesn't interfere with

17:36

my singing, and

17:39

he looked at me and he told me, lady,

17:41

he said, Francois, that

17:44

is the moment that I loved

17:46

you, because

17:49

you were not gonna kiss my ass,

17:52

and that's what everybody else was doing. Those

17:55

are his words. Officer Clemens

17:58

first appeared in the neighborhood in August of nine.

18:01

He says it took a while for him to get

18:03

used to working with Fred Rogers. He

18:06

was a very unusual

18:09

positive energy. It was not negative,

18:12

but it was just so damn unusual. And

18:14

by that I mean those puppets. Uh

18:18

caused me a lot of hours

18:20

of thinking, what on

18:22

earth was a grown man doing

18:25

plan with those puppets. I'm a ghetto

18:27

boy, that was. I knew some black men who

18:31

well halfway trying to act right, but

18:33

I never knew none who could play with

18:35

no puppets, you know. So I

18:38

could, I just couldn't wrap my head around it. And

18:40

so I was looking at him. I was

18:43

looking at him carefully. But ultimately

18:45

Francois found in Fred a kindred

18:47

spirit, a willing, creative

18:50

collaborator, and a true friend

18:52

who loved him in a way that Francois

18:54

hadn't quite experienced. Before Fred

18:57

Raw just recognized something

19:00

in me before I did. When

19:02

I got with Fred and he began to do these

19:05

little extra things, that

19:08

was over and beyond the call of Judy. I

19:12

I was confused by that. Why is this

19:14

white guy sticking with me?

19:16

Why is he so persistently wonderful?

19:19

So when he said you're

19:21

special, and you know

19:23

how just by

19:26

being you and

19:28

I like you who

19:32

just the way you are? Can

19:35

you make every day a special day?

19:40

One instance in particular stands out to Francois

19:43

many years later. Mr Rogers

19:45

was rapping the show the way he always rapped the

19:47

show, changing his shoes, removing a sweater.

19:50

You've made it a special day for me, you

19:53

know how, by just your

19:55

being yourself. Yeah,

19:59

there's only one person in the whole

20:01

world like you, and

20:03

I like you just the way you

20:05

are. See Tom, I don't

20:08

even know how to explain it, except we had

20:10

locked eyes all the way across

20:12

this big studio, and

20:14

I dared to say to myself, he's talking

20:17

to me, But

20:19

he talks. He says that every every time I

20:21

come to a show that he's filming, he's

20:24

saying that. Why was he saying that to me

20:26

today? There

20:28

was something in his voice, something

20:31

in his eyes. It was important

20:33

to me to ask him, Fred,

20:37

were you talking to me? I

20:41

had never had somebody say that to

20:43

me in my whole life. Oh

20:45

Lord, I can't tell you. When he said, yes,

20:49

yes, I've been talking to you for two

20:51

years and you

20:54

heard me today, that

20:58

was such a the lines

21:01

explosion. I can't

21:03

explain it any other way. It

21:06

was inside of me, it was outside of me, it

21:08

was in him, it was in our eyes. I

21:11

saw divinity. That's

21:13

the only thing I can tell people. I

21:15

have never experienced anything like

21:17

it since. And I

21:20

just collapsed in his in his arms.

21:30

For Francois, the prospect of being accepted

21:33

fully and completely was

21:35

a near religious experience,

21:38

But it was also a complicated one because

21:41

Francois had a secret,

21:44

a big secret that he had been

21:46

keeping from almost everyone. Would

21:48

Fred accept him even if he knew

21:51

that secret too, Would Fred

21:53

truly like him just the way that

21:55

he was. I

22:00

remember calling Fred on the telephone. I said I've

22:02

got to tell you something, and

22:04

he said yes, And

22:06

that's when I really said to him,

22:09

I'm gay. Fred. He

22:14

said to me, I will

22:17

always love you, Francois. So

22:20

that's not what we're discussing. What

22:24

we are discussing is

22:26

the role that you will be able to play

22:28

on Mr rogers neighborhood. And

22:31

what does it mean if

22:34

you choose to come out. Fred

22:37

Rogers loved and accepted Francois

22:39

Clements and in nine

22:41

it was a radical act to show a black

22:43

man and a white man sharing a footpath, but

22:46

having an openly gay man performing

22:48

on a children's show that felt

22:50

to Fred even riskier. And

22:52

the thing that he impressed upon me was the

22:57

advertisers there would

22:59

be a normal pressure on them

23:02

from certain corners in our society

23:05

that condemn homosexuality.

23:08

And the thing he said to me was, France, while they're

23:10

going to say terrible things about

23:13

you and about

23:15

me and about

23:17

our program.

23:22

And he said, all of our work,

23:26

all of our valuable work and research

23:29

will be lost. Is

23:32

that what you want? And

23:37

I, of course no, of course not.

23:41

Then he said you you cannot come out. You

23:45

come out. They will not tolerate, they

23:48

will not tolerate a gay person, and

23:51

especially on a children's television

23:53

program. It simply could not be done. How

23:58

did that make you feel? It

24:07

was one of the lowest, one

24:12

of the lowest moments of my life. Realizing

24:14

that, I

24:16

think that was the moment I decided to go back

24:19

into the closet and stay. Francois

24:23

had spent years learning to love and

24:25

accept himself, and here

24:27

he was presenting a crucial part of

24:29

that self to Fred. And though Fred

24:31

reiterated his unconditional love for

24:33

Francois, he still didn't believe

24:35

that the wider world was ready to accept

24:38

Francois just the way he

24:40

was. Fred

24:42

was faced with the question of weighing the needs of

24:45

his friend with the preservation

24:47

of his own larger mission, reaching

24:50

as many children as possible. There

24:52

were those in the black community, Oh

24:55

my goodness, who said to me, how

24:57

important it is that there's

24:59

a face on that children's

25:01

show appearing fairly regularly.

25:04

Francois the

25:06

ghetto kid needs to know that

25:08

they too can go from the ghetto to Mr.

25:11

Rogers neighborhood. They

25:13

they really impressed upon me how

25:15

important it was that there would

25:17

be no scandal,

25:21

no disgrace to the race. Boy

25:25

did I I zipped it up then, So,

25:27

even though there were things

25:30

going on a stone wall, I

25:33

absolutely did not have the luxury

25:37

of coming out. If I were going to

25:39

be continue

25:41

on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. And

25:44

I've said this too many people who

25:47

tried to say, well, he rejected you, and he

25:49

would didn't want you on the program, and this is that

25:51

blah blah. I can't tell you how much

25:53

I thought about that. I

25:58

say that was there was a period of time with when

26:00

it was obsessive. I can't

26:02

be myself, I can't have a normal life.

26:05

What a sacrifice. Francois

26:10

Clemens made an enormous sacrifice

26:13

in a very real sense. That sacrifice may

26:15

have been responsible for thirty years

26:17

worth of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, because

26:20

who's to say how long a show with a gay

26:22

black man would have even stayed on the air

26:24

in the late nineteen sixties. And

26:26

there's another irony that for

26:28

all of Fred's stated commitment to

26:30

commercial free television for kids, he

26:33

still felt worried about protecting advertisers

26:36

from the pressure of Francois coming

26:38

out. So

26:40

where did that leave Francois. He

26:44

had to swallow his pain and

26:46

he had to carry it. He

26:49

had to accept this denial of honesty as

26:51

the price of being a part of a work

26:53

like Mr. Rogers Neighborhood that did

26:55

do so much good for so many people.

26:59

Fred Rogers of meant liberation

27:01

for Francois Clemens, but not complete

27:04

liberation that would

27:06

be for Francois to find on his own.

27:10

But he did learn from Fred. For

27:12

nearly three decades, he watched Fred

27:14

love the Clay, demonstrate practical

27:17

care and real goodness, and he saw

27:19

how the transmission of that care through millions

27:21

of TV screens could have a domino

27:23

effect. And he decided that that

27:25

result was too good to

27:28

endanger what

27:31

I have made the same kind of personal

27:33

sacrifice, would

27:35

you? Francoise

27:45

professional singing career took more and more

27:47

of his time. His final scene on

27:49

the show was in and he hadn't

27:51

appeared dressed as a police officer in almost

27:53

a decade. But in that last episode,

27:56

he showed up at Mr Rogers porch just

27:58

as Fred was starting to

28:01

soak his feet. H

28:08

you know, I've been sitting here thinking about

28:11

different ways people have of showing

28:13

love to each other and to themselves.

28:17

I like to think of things like that, he

28:21

Fred French or

28:23

Clemens. Hi, welcome, thank you,

28:26

How you doing fine? How are you today? My

28:28

feet were tired, so I thought I'd just soaked

28:31

them for a while in this water. Does

28:33

it make him feel better? It does? Would

28:35

you like to try? Sure? It

28:42

does feel good? I

28:44

was thinking about many

28:46

different ways of saying I love you.

28:51

Singing is one of my ways of saying I love you. Oh

28:53

I know that. Do you have time

28:56

to to give a song to

28:58

my friend and me? I sure do. There

29:01

are many ways to say

29:04

I love you. There

29:06

are many ways to say

29:09

I care about anyways,

29:13

so many ways, many

29:16

ways to say

29:19

I've sung it a million times

29:22

and I still love it. There's the singing

29:24

way to say I love

29:27

you. I get such a

29:29

dose a Fred love.

29:32

That's what I call it. I'm so blessed,

29:35

I'm very grateful. Many ways

29:38

to say I

29:42

love you.

29:48

I'm so proud of you. Friends. Oh,

29:50

thank you Fred. Next

29:56

time they called it Fred time.

29:59

He slowed a pace down and

30:01

that gave him the opportunity to express

30:05

his love and care for other people and

30:07

reach out and touch our hearts as

30:09

well. Finding Fred

30:11

is produced by Transmitter Media. The

30:13

team is Dan O'Donnell, Jordan Bailey,

30:15

and Mattie Foley. Our editor is

30:18

Sarah Nick's editorial help from Michael

30:20

Garoffalo. The executive producer

30:22

for Transmitter Media is Gretta Cone. Executive

30:25

producers at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs

30:27

and Andrew Berman. Music by Blue

30:29

Dot Sessions and Alison Layton Brown

30:32

And thanks to the team at I Heart. I'm

30:35

Carvelo Wallace. Thanks for listening.