There are legends in Pittsburgh, where I grew up, about "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" which stayed there for 30 years. One strikes me as perhaps the greatest of them all. The story involves a car thief in the upper class suburb of Pittsburgh where Rogers lived. The thief scanned the streets, selected, broke in to and successfully stole Mr. Rogers' car. He took the car to the chop shop and began disassembling it. In the trunk, the thief came upon a few boxes. Eager to see what lay inside, the thief opened them. To his great surprise, he found none other than King Friday XIII, Daniel Striped Tiger and the other puppets from Rogers' Land of Make-Believe. He checked the registration and sure enough, the car belonged to Mr. Rogers. Wracked with guilt, the thief ordered the car completely reassembled and returned it, the same day, with a hand-written letter of apology taped to the dashboard.

On Feb. 27, 2003, I read a section on the "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" website called "Information for Parents and Teachers at this time." The paragraphs that followed included tips on how parents or teachers could relay the sad news of Fred Rogers' death to their children. "You may be surprised to find that you are more upset than your child," the site said. Adults, parents, college students-those of us who responded affirmatively when Mr. Rogers asked us to be his neighbors years ago are now left to deal with his loss. One quotation on the site from Rogers himself seems terribly comforting and unsettling at the same time. "There's only one person in the whole world like you." There was only one Mister Rogers in the whole world, and he left it early last Thursday morning.

It was stomach cancer. The public was informed that his was a brief illness, and that Rogers felt no pain as he passed away in his Pittsburgh home with family and friends close at hand. He was 74.

Fred McFeely Rogers was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, thirty miles east of Pittsburgh in 1928. He received a degree in music composition from Rollins College in 1951 and shortly afterwards was hired by NBC in New York. Rogers worked behind the scenes on a myriad of shows until 1953 when WQED in Pittsburgh, America's first community-sponsored, educational television station, hired him to develop their program schedule from scratch. During this time Rogers developed "The Children's Corner," a daily show featuring music and puppets and hosted by Josie Carey. Rogers served as puppeteer, organist and composer for the show, which featured, for the first time, such Neighborhood regulars as Daniel Striped Tiger, X the Owl, King Friday XIII, Lady Elaine Fairchilde and Henrietta Pussycat.

In 1963, Rogers was offered the opportunity to create his own show for the Canadian Broadcasting Company. After three years Rogers moved with his show and family, two sons and wife, Joanna, back to Pittsburgh. In 1968, "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" became nationally distributed through PBS.

During the show's 30-plus years on television-the longest running show on PBS- Rogers won two Peabody Awards, several Emmys, lifetime achievement awards and virtually every other major television award for which he could possibly have been eligible. In 1968, Rogers was appointed Chairman of the Forum on Mass Media and Child Development of the White House Conference on Youth. In 1999, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. And in 2002, Fred Rogers was presented with the Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor.

I watched Rogers receive that medal on CNN last year. Standing alongside George W. Bush, Nancy Reagan and Nelson Mandela, Rogers cut a distinguished figure. A man just as influential on young lives as Nancy Reagan, as much of a household name as Mandela and certainly enjoying a higher approval rating than Bush, Rogers stood straight, gave Bush a kind look-just another neighbor-and accepted the medal.

Rereading "You may be more upset than your child," it seems that the rationale is that, as adults in this world, we know more of what was lost with the passing of Fred Rogers. We fondly recall the visits to the Land of Make-Believe, or being calmed by Rogers and Handyman Negri serenading us with "It's You I Like" or "It's Such a Good Feeling to Know You're Alive." We vividly remember learning with Mr. Rogers how crayons are made (an art which, as it turned out, was a thousand times more extraordinary and beautiful than anyone ever would have imagined).

There are, doubtless, many reading this who never did watch "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," for whom Fred Rogers is just another celebrity who died. But Rogers extended far past the small screen and out of his cardigan. Rogers was an icon, a symbol of what we like about and want for America-acceptance, imagination and community.

He was like a national comfort blanket. During the Cold War he dedicated himself to showing children (and, of course, the parents and babysitters who watched with them) how to deal with the fear of war. During the Persian Gulf War, Rogers recorded public service announcements (PSAs) speaking directly to children of soldiers. In 2002, Rogers filmed a series of PSAs to advise parents on how to approach the significance of Sept. 11 to their children.

If we are able to remember Fred Rogers in any way, it should be that we relish the opportunities we have for making peace, for not letting fear carry us away. But even more simply, if we take his message, a message not of any grand ideals, but of general, refreshing niceness, and run with it, then Mister Rogers will be alive and well. And it's such a good feeling to know you're alive, Mister Rogers. It's a very good feeling.