I’ve always known that I was a bit different (insert you own punch line here).

But seriously, scissors just didn’t feel right in my hand; ditto for a carrot peeler and a power saw. School desks were also an obstacle – forcing me to reach cross-handed in order to perform writing skills. I must admit my writing was sloppy, mostly due to my left pinky smearing the ink as my hand traveled across the page. Traditional three-ring binders and spiral notebooks also provided a huge headache for me in school.

Yes, I’m left-handed. No, that doesn’t mean, according to some wise, old (and undoubtedly right-handed) sage that “I owe the Devil a day’s work.”

Left-handers face discrimination each and every day of their lives – not in the sense of being denied equal rights (ala, housing, a seat on the bus, etc.), but rather just by living in a right-hander’s world.

However, being a southpaw has its advantages, the most notable of which is our ability to overcome any and all inconveniences and/or obstacles placed before us.

Legendary rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix taught himself how to play by turning a right-handed guitar upside down. Now that’s a perfect example of how lefties can overcome what would normally be considered as a barricade.

Going on definitions alone, it’s apparently not a good thing to be left-handed. The English word, left, comes from the Anglo-Saxon word, lyft, meaning weak, worthless or broken. The Latin meaning of left is sinister while the French interpretation of left, or as they call it, gauche, is crude or lacking grace.

Lefties coming from right-handed parents are indeed special (as was I). Studies have shown that if both parents are right-handed, the chance of having a left-handed child is a mere two percent. That figure rises to 17 percent if one parent is a lefty. If both parents are southpaws, the chance of their offspring being the same is an even 50 percent.

Did you know that the firstborn children of mothers over the age of 30 are more likely to be left-handed than kids born to younger moms?

Many believe that lefties are clumsy or accident-prone. If we are, then it’s the fault of having to learn to deal with life’s simple pleasures, all of which favor right-handed people.

The history of our world was shaped by such lefties as Napoleon, Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great.

Some of the world’s most famous “thinkers” were left-handed – Aristotle, Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton.

The list of southpaw Presidents is lengthy – George Bush, Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan (born as a lefty, but was forced to switch to the other side), John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, Herbert Hoover, James Garfield, Thomas Jefferson and our current leader – Barack Obama.

Exercise guru Richard Simmons is left-handed, as are two of the most-watched late-night TV hosts – David Letterman and Jay Leno.

Even the beloved Kermit the Frog is left-handed, as was his creator, the late Jim Henson.

I’ll leave you with arguably the finest piece of evidence that left-handers are the best. Through the years, the world’s leading scientists developed the “mirror effect” theory, one that stated a right-handed person thinks with the left side of their brain while the opposite was true for a lefty. However, more recent scientific studies have revealed that while the actions of righties are indeed guided by the left hemisphere of their brain, lefties use both sides of their brains more evenly.

“Left-on!”

 

Cal Bryant is the Editor of Roanoke-Chowan Publications. He can be contacted at cal.bryant@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7207.