Ibsen, B.F. Skinner, and Mr. Rogers. It’s a glorious day, March 20, because those three men were born on this date — in 1828, 1904, and 1928, respectively. It would perhaps be more glorious if the trio was still alive, of course, working and creating and breathing, inspiring, but that’s a matter for another time.

When I saw it was Ibsen’s birthday, my mind went immediately to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, one of my favorite cultural organizations. It was there, in 2006, that I saw a performance of Hedda Gabler, with Cate Blanchett in the title role. It was moving, and powerful. It was, as Ben Brantley wrote, a hurricane of a performance.

Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving in ‘Hedda Gabler‘ (Ari Mintz/Newsweek)

I miss the stages and screens at BAM. In fact, not being able to sit in an audience at a theatre watching a live performance is one of the things I’ve most missed this past year …

Skinner. When did I first hear his name? Box and rat are the words that come next to my mind. And the joy of learning, in which Skinner, along with Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon and Shakespeare and George Washington and Helen Keller (among others), played a major role during my early school years. I was fascinated with the pigeons and the rats and recall thinking that they were not so different from humans, from my classmates and teachers and me.

Skinner was a “failed” writer, and had gone to New York City after graduating from Hamilton College to write fiction.

The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.

B.F. Skinner
Happy Birthday, B.F. Skinner. (Harvard University)

Mr. Rogers is the third birthday boy I celebrate today. He was — and still is if we allow him to be — a helper. How many children looked to him for help and guidance? Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood is timeless, though its final episode aired on PBS in 2000. What began there in 1968 was a good and fine thing.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'”

Fred Rogers and François Clemmons on the set of ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood’ … life lessons taught well. (By John Beale/Courtesy Focus Features

That quote has stuck with me since I first heard it. My thoughts about it have changed over the years, but I’ve kept it in my head for a while now. I believe that Mr. Rogers taught the young me who’d grow into an older me how to speak to children. I thank him for that.

Happy Birthday, gentlemen.