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Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

I remember a professor (I don’t remember his name) telling my class (I don’t remember what class it was), “I have three things I want you to remember today.”

I don’t remember what the three things were, but I remember there were three of them. So, that’s been a big help, and I also recall learning (I don’t remember at what school) that a personal mission statement has three key components: core values, passions and goals.

I learned from the School of Hard Knocks that the three hardest things for a man to say are: Worcestershire sauce, Cholmondeley and I’m sorry.

I enjoy watching “The Wizard of Oz,” and the film’s line that I’ve quoted most often is “Lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my!” In the movie, the mention of the fierce beasties was used to express apprehension or fear regarding the presence, combination or abundance of those three particular animals. I say it in reference to an unknown and feared predator, which may or may not exist.

The number three has many biblical meanings. The Bible is filled with triples and so is third base. We all know someone who was born on third base and claims to have hit a triple.

Slogans, movie titles, book names, fairy tales and many other things are structured in threes — “Three Little Pigs,” “Three Billy Goats Gruff,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “Three Coins in the Fountain” and “The Three Musketeers.”

The idea that people die in threes is a superstition known as the Rule of Threes. We can breathe easier knowing that it’s not the Rule of Nineteens. The superstition suggests that when a celebrity dies, two more will follow shortly after. “Shortly after” could take weeks or months, so you celebrities reading this, simmer down.

Leaves at three, let it be. Poison ivy has three leaves but wears many disguises. Sometimes it’s a vine, shrub, herbaceous plant, politician or shady investment deal.

Three strikes and you’re out in baseball, but three strikes in bowling is called a turkey.

Two’s company and three’s a crowd refers to eating the Nearly Inedible Cheeseburger at the Eat Around It Cafe. Four is a trip to an emergency room.

If you want to make a point by quoting someone, give credit for the wisdom to one of three men: Abraham Lincoln, Yogi Berra or Winston Churchill.

I left the farm carrying Grandma’s three rules: Never walk past a restroom door without considering your future. Never miss a chance to put your feet up. Shut up and listen.

I went away to school, studying under The Three Stooges, in the hopes of becoming wise instead of merely a wisenheimer. I wanted to be smart enough to sit at the cafe’s Table of Infinite Knowledge one day. When I was off attempting to have a nice day at college and thrive under the tutelage of Moe, Larry and Curly (I took an eye-gouging self-defense class, an identifying a porcupine lecture, and the Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk language course), I looked forward to getting my mother’s letters. She wrote one in shifts, stopping one day and taking up her writing the next day. I could tell by the change in the ink’s color. She’d forgo the weather report to make room for reports of kin, neighbors and farming. She’d often send clippings from newspapers, magazines and newsletters, which she found interesting and hoped I might. I’ve fond memories of those missives and can quickly summon to the thought bubble above my head the image of a clipping, probably from “Capper’s Weekly,” that read: To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.

Not long after that point in history, I read that biographer Leon Edel had used an anecdote from Henry James’ nephew, who said his uncle told him: “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”

I’ve said that more often than “Lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my!” and I’ve never once credited it to Abraham Lincoln, Yogi Berra or Winston Churchill.

Be kind, be kind, be kind.

Those are three essential things to remember.

Al Batt’s columns appear in the Tribune every Wednesday.