Among my most cherished possessions is a black-and-white photograph from 1965 that is displayed in a matted frame in the family room of my home, always waiting for a new observer to ask the story behind it.

I had just turned 5 when the picture was taken at my nursery school, showing me in my pixie haircut, inspecting a puppet that is being held by the student teacher in front of me. The young man's name was Fred Rogers.

Long before public television introduced him to a national audience, Fred Rogers was a frequent visitor at my school, the Arsenal Family and Children's Center, which was directly across the street from my home near the corner of 39th Street and Penn Avenue in Lawrenceville. Mister Rogers was a graduate student in the child development program at the University of Pittsburgh and the protege of well-known child psychologist Margaret McFarland, the director and a founder of the Arsenal Center.

Mister Rogers began as an onlooker and later became an instructor and performer for my class. My privileged fellow preschoolers and I were fed a stream of music and ideas with which he was experimenting, and much of his early work was influenced by our reactions and receptiveness.

Young and naive, we were unaware that while he was spending time with us, the wheels were in motion for his national television series and a life of fame. To our class of 5-year-olds, he was merely a student teacher who acted like a beloved playmate.

The photograph resurfaced shortly after Fred Rogers' death in 2003. Much to my surprise, my nursery school teacher, Nancy Curry, found it like a sunken treasure and sent it to me after we reunited at the memorial service for Fred in Pittsburgh.

We reminisced about the fall of 1964, right before the photograph was taken, when a few pilots of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" aired on WTAE-TV. My class from the Arsenal was invited to be special guests on the very first show -- a nice reward for letting Mister Rogers try out his child-development theories on us. The debut was a memorable event for all, but no one had any idea of the successes that would follow.

Having first dibs on Mister Rogers entitled me to a lifetime of bragging rights, though I must admit that I was sometimes embarrassed to be a perpetual cheerleader, defending what some perceived as a sugar-coated message of affirmation.

Yet, the older I became, the more I appreciated his innate kindness and extraordinary generosity of spirit. The Rogers philosophy that was repeated like a mantra throughout his lifetime explained that who we are and who we become as adults is a direct result of those who have taken a genuine interest in us, those who have encouraged, inspired and, above all, listened to us as children.

It is a certainty that his dedication to the education of children will remain unsurpassed. But I can't help but wonder if "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" will continue to hold the attention of children. Used to high-tech animation and digital mastery, even the most imaginative kids might not buy into a make-believe world where puppets faces are frozen and their mouths fail to move when they talk.

Even so, with all the popularity of today's reality TV, the truthful way that Fred Rogers spoke about being proud of us, and his offerings of comfort and confidence, were about as real as it gets.

Future generations need to hear Fred Rogers' universal message of unconditional love. In the early childhood years, it is imperative that we talk and listen to our children, spend time with them and teach them about things that matter. Our busy schedules leave us with too little time, but there is no surrogate for attention and guidance from a parent.

As Pittsburghers, we had a remarkable opportunity to experience Fred's extraordinary goodness firsthand, and we still have the privilege of claiming him as our own. It is our obligation to heed the lessons he shared and the example he set.

Fred Rogers often said that the greatest gift you can give is the gift of yourself. On what would have been his 80th birthday, tomorrow is a day to celebrate what Mister Rogers meant to young children, grown children, parents, grandparents, friends and neighbors everywhere.

There's no better way to honor and remember him than to find our way back, to revisit and rediscover his timeless child-rearing lessons.