Posted on 08/13/2005 4:03:48 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Throughout history, lefties have had to struggle mightily in a world built for right-handers -- by right handers.
Prejudice abounded for centuries. The Roman word for left -- sinistra -- became the English word for sinister. Generations of left-handed schoolchildren were forced to become right-handers and punished when they persisted to write left-handed. Some cultures condemn use of the left hand even today.
Medical researchers suggest left-handers are more accident prone, suffer more sports injuries and may die earlier than right-handers, though such conclusions are much debated.
On top of all this, most everything made for human hands is designed for the right-handed.
Today, across a world stacked against them, lefties are celebrating all that is left-handed on International Left-Handers Day.
The Left-Handers Club, which is based in the United Kingdom and claims 48,000 members worldwide, is encouraging lefties everywhere to trumpet left-hand superiority today and raise awareness of the disadvantages and prejudices lefties face living in a right-biased world.
Growing up left-handed, J. Paul Vance remembers the nuns at his parochial school tried to convert him to writing right-handed.
"That didn't work. I am a stubborn Irishman," said Vance, a sergeant with the state police and the agency's spokesman.
As a left-hander back in the days of ink wells, state Rep. Richard O. Belden, R-Shelton, struggled to learn to write under the Palmer Method of penmanship.
This formalized style of writing was designed to be legible, not necessarily easy to accomplish. Students copied a uniform style of cursive lettering, drilling over and over and over again. Left-handers were usually forced to use their right hands -- reaching across their bodies on desks designed for right-handers. Sometimes there was painful encouragement from teachers.
"I still remember that teacher with the pointer rapping my hand," Belden said. All it did was leave him with sore knuckles and a resolve not to switch pen hands.
"The greatest day for me was in 1948 when they came out with the ballpoint pen," said Belden, a 15-term representative and the longest serving member of the Connecticut House.
State Comptroller Nancy Wyman said her parents might have tried to force her to write right-handed if it had not been for the intervention of her grandfather, an ambidextrous tailor.
"When my parents realized I was a lefty, my grandfather said, 'You leave her alone and she'll figure out what to do with her hands.'"
If not for her medical student brother, Paula Schwartz, the superintendent of the Region 10 school district, said her parents and teachers probably would have made her switch writing hands from left to right.
"During the '40s and '50s, that was strategy," she said. However, times, thinking and teaching have changed.
Being left-handed, Schwartz will tell you, has its disadvantages. Finding a left-handed potato peeler is a quest. But, said Schwartz, "I think it has just made me a more creative person. I have always had to problem solve: OK, I am left-handed. How do it do this?" she said.
Ken Kerski figured out how to throw a baseball left-handed and the ace hurler for Crosby High School is now headed to Central Connecticut State University after terrific showings in his senior year and American Legion play this summer.
"Right now, it is pretty good being left-handed," Kerski said.
On the pitcher's mound, left-handedness is largely viewed as a competitive advantage. It is a distinct disadvantage behind home plate and that's why left-handed catchers are so rare. Batters are generally right-handed and stand on the left side of home plate, which would naturally block a left-handed throw to second base.
A left-hander has little choice but to adapt to a right-handed world.
"After 56 years, I've gotten used to it," Waterbury State's Attorney John Connelly said.
He said the most frustrating problem he's had as a left-hander was using spiral and three-ring notebooks in high school, college and law school because they are set up for the right-handed. Same for file folders.
Scientists are not sure what makes somebody left- or right-handed. A popular theory is genetics. Another school of thought suggests high testosterone levels in the womb result in left-handedness. Others theorize damage to the brain, an insufficient supply of oxygen to the brain or a difficult birth can cause left-handedness. Still others say left-handedness stems from the way a person's brain is wired.
Whatever the cause, few people are 100 percent left-handed. Vance, for example, plays golf right-handed. He also bats and throws right-handed when playing baseball.
"For some reason, I couldn't lefty," he said. Shooting his state police sidearm, however, is different. "We have to learn to shoot with both hands, but my strong hand is my left hand," he said.
One out of every 10 to 15 people today is estimated to be left-handed. Yet, many righties seem to know a lefty.
"I am surrounded by left-handers," said J. Paul Vance Jr., Vance's son and the right-handed president of the Waterbury Board of Aldermen.
Not only is his father a lefty, but also the head of his law firm. The left-handed ways of the southpaws around him are sometimes source of amusement.
"I am constantly watching left-handed people write all weird and how they curl their arm," the younger Vance said.
Crimping their hand so it looks like a hook is a trait of many left-handed writers. Bad penmanship, too.
"I print," said Wyman, the state comptroller. About the only cursive writing she does is signing her name. Wyman said she had to change her signature when she became controller. It was too small. She had to learn to write her name larger so it would be legible on state checks.
Although much is stacked against them, lefties such as Wyman, Schwartz and Kerski revel in their left-handedness and say they would not switch for the world.
A band of proud lefties formed Lefthanders International nearly 30 years ago and launched the first International Left-Handers Day on Aug. 13, 1976. The now-defunct group's organizers choose that day because it was a Friday the 13th and a way to poke fun at superstitions aimed at left-handers.
Today, the UK-based Left-Handers Club will take the lead in promoting International Left-Handers Day. We salute them with, ahem, our right hand.
Powder..Patch..Ball FIRE!
At the IT department I work in 14 of 19 technical people (technicians, programmers) are left handed.
The right handers are the project managers and support staff.
5.56mm
The left side of the body is controlled by the right side of the brain. The right side of the body is controlled by the left side of the brain.
Therefore only left handers are in their right mind.
"I am constantly watching left-handed people write all weird and how they curl their arm," the younger Vance said.
That's because their teachers were bozos. Here's the solution: Ok, lay your paper down as if you were going to begin writing. Notice it's turned the way right handed teachers taught you with the top slanted towards the left. Simply turn the paper so that the top is slanted toward the right (looking at a clock, this will be at 1 or 2 o'clock). Viola, now you don't have to twist your wrist around trying to write upside down!
"I am constantly watching left-handed people write all weird and how they curl their arm," the younger Vance said.
That's because their teachers were bozos. Here's the solution: Ok, lay your paper down as if you were going to begin writing. Notice it's turned the way right handed teachers taught you with the top slanted towards the left. Simply turn the paper so that the top is slanted toward the right (looking at a clock, this will be at 1 or 2 o'clock). Viola, now you don't have to twist your wrist around trying to write upside down!
... but then again, I probably wasn't a good batter anyway :)
2 of my 4 children are lefties and write just fine because they were taught using the Spaulding Method, which has specific and different instructions for lefties than it does for righties.
Everyone starts out right-handed, but only lefties have overcome it. :-D
I'm a lefty and I have VERY good penmanship: my parents got me a chalkboard at home (after taking the teacher to task for trying to switch the pencil from my left to my right) and I practiced NOT erasing my own letters. As a result, I do not curve my hand at the usual "hooked" angle, either, but apparently I do lift the outside edge of my writing hand when I write.
I think lefties ARE more creative because we have to automatically figure out alternative solutions to everyday problems. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it, LOL!
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