I Was Thinking... The Threes

Did you ever notice the patterns that seem to develop in certain cultures? It seems certain numbers are woven into countless aspects of their society. For Americans it seems to be threes. They seem to be everywhere.

From the very beginning of a child’s life, we are inundated with threes. As a child I was read stories and nursery rhymes about the Three Bears, the Three Little Pigs, the Three Blind Mice and Three Men in a Tub.

When we got older, we had to learn our ABC’s. There was more to the alphabet, but just used three letters to represent the whole group. Even when we played, we learned ready, set, go. Our breakfast cereal went snap, crackle, pop, the cartoons had Donald Duck’s nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie and the Chipmunks were Simon, Theodore, and. of course. Alvin.

As we grew and refined our tastes, we watch the Three Stooges or old shows starring Groucho, Chico, and Harpo as the Marx Brothers. Our early TV watching was limited to just the three networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, all with just three letters. When we started playing baseball, we learned three strikes and you’re out, there are three outs per half inning and there are three bases in the game. Of course, if you won, everyone yelled, hip, hip, hooray.

Even our literature and TV watching reinforced our fixation with threes. There were the Three Musketeers, Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith were Charlie’s Angels, while Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short became the Three Amigos. And who could forget the classic movie, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Even Harry Potter featured the trio of Harry, Hermione, and Ron.

The music industry continued our obsession with threes. There were Patty, Maxine, and Laverne that made up the Andrew Sisters, we had the Three Tops and of course the Kingston Trio. As music evolved so did the groups including Peter, Paul, and Mary, The Supremes, Three Dog Night, Blood, Sweat and Tears and the Three Tenors. Even the song “Three Coins in a Fountain” won an Oscar in the 1955 Academy Awards.

Threes weren’t confined to entertainment either. Education strengthened our fascination with threes. The government class taught you about the three branches of government, history taught you about the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan as well as the Yalta Conference with Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill.

English had you write things in the past, present, and future tenses. And geometry taught you about triangles, angle side angle, and side angle, side proofs. At times it even crossed curriculums when you learned that Julius Caesar uttered the famous Latin phase, veni, vidi, vici, I came, I saw, I conquered.

All cultures depend on religious beliefs and instruction. Threes aren’t lacking here either. We celebrate the arrival of the Three Wise Men after Jesus birth, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit make up the Holy Trinity, and it took just three days for Jesus to rise from the dead.

Even unofficial education emphasizes threes. It is bad luck to have three on a match, deaths of famous people usually occur in threes. Great virtues we hope to instill into our children are faith, hope, and charity.

Three’s a crowd. Sneezes often come in threes. And of course, we eat three meals a day.

Even Kasson demonstrated the power of threes. When we moved here in 1977 it had three hardware stores, three auto dealers, three gas stations and three school buildings.

I’ve probably exhausted my facts about threes, and probably my reading audience as well. So me, myself, and I will finally close.

Did You Ever Wonder? Why would Wal-Mart have 30 cash registers but only keep three open?