Disabilities Aren't Always Obvious
It's the invisible ones you need to watch out for
Disabilities, Prejudice, Emotions, Kindness, Friendship, Neighbors
“Part of the problem with the word ‘disabilities’ is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can’t feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren’t able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities. “
— Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember (Family Communications, 2003), 25.
The image above is of Fred Rogers with Jeff Erlanger, a boy he described as his favorite guest he ever had on his program. Jeff became quadriplegic at the age of seven months because of a spinal tumor. Fred first met him when he was 5 years old and about to undergo spinal surgery.
“My parents asked me what it was I wanted to do before the surgery,” Jeff explained years later. “They were expecting me to say that I wanted to go to an amusement park. My answer was that I wanted to meet Mr. Rogers.”
In characteristic fashion, Mr. Rogers agreed to see him. Their friendship began that day.
In 1981, when Jeff was 10, Fred invited him to be a guest on MisterRogers’ Neighborhood. The scene was unscripted and shot in a single 10-minute take. Jeff showed his electric wheelchair to Mr. Rogers and explained why he needed it. They sang one of Fred’s best-known songs, “It’s You I Like.” Fred adapted the lyrics to illustrate that it wasn’t Jeff’s “fancy chair” that was important. It was who was sitting in it.
When Fred was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1999, program planners arranged for a tuxedo-clad Jeff to appear on the stage as a surprise guest. In a touching moment, the delighted Fred jumped up from his seat and bounded up onto the stage to embrace him. His acceptance speech — a moving mission statement for his own life, and a gentle exhortation to the TV industry to serve the public good — is not to be missed:
Tom Hanks was asked to portray Fred in the 2018 documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Hanks later explained that it was a clip of Jeff’s 1981 appearance on the show that convinced him to accept the offer. “It made me bawl my eyes out,” he told Vanity Fair. “It’s one of the reasons why I’m in the movie.”
For more, see Tom Whitcomb, “A Madison boy was Fred Rogers’ favorite neighbor,” The Bozho, December 6, 2019.
https://www.thebozho.com/jeff-erlanger-mister-rogers/
Retrieved April 6, 2026.
The longer he's gone, the more his stature grows.
absolutely the best of us.