What if you spent every day in a backward world, with everything working against you? Zipper pulls were on the wrong side of your jeans, shirts and jackets buttoned the wrong way, knives were sharpened on the wrong side for cutting, pots and pans had their spouts on the wrong sides, doorknobs and corkscrews turned the wrong way, gear shift levers were on the wrong side of the car, and so on all day, every day? That's how left-handed people live their lives.
From the time they are old enough to listen, left-handers - an estimated one-tenth of the world's population - have had it drilled into them that left-handedness is wrong. Even worse, many have been told it is inferior. That may go clear back to the days of the ancient Romans when it was common thought that lefties were immoral. According to studies in the U.S. in more recent years, it was reported lefties lived nine years less than righties, were three times more likely to suffer immune disorders, were more likely to become alcoholics and to go insane. In rebuttal, one jokester noted that "since the right side of the brain governs the left side of the body, then left-handed persons are the only ones in their right minds!"
In spite of all this negativity, it hasn't bothered seven men who wanted to be President of the U.S. That group includes Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. James Garfield might be added. He was, in fact, ambidextrous, able to write different languages with each hand simultaneously.
In American schools, for many years of my youth, penmanship teachers tried to force children with a leftie disposition to write right, usually with the blessing of the parents. It was a problem because penmanship teachers didn't know how to teach lefties. I never saw a left-handed penmanship teacher.
Changing was for their own good, because from then on they were going to face a predominantly right-handed world. Even the school desks were made for right-handed writers then. I watched the lefties write with their hands "hooked" almost upside-down over the lines they wrote. In order to see what they were writing and to avoid dragging their hands across their writing, they had to be contortionists.
Only in fairly recent years have lefties been able to find baseball gloves or golf clubs. Scissors were very difficult to use. Wristwatches had to be worn upside-down Playing cards were printed so they couldn't be read when fanned in the right hand. Left-handed violinists or guitar players had to re-string their instruments to play and left-handed saxophonists didn't exist. Even gum wrappers were hard to open for lefties.
Job hunting had its drawbacks for lefties too. Tools of the trades in every type job from lathe operator to cashier, from dentist to bookkeeper were made backwards for lefties. Using a typical power saw was an invitation to become a righty permanently!
There are several reasons why this became a right-handed world. Family genes is one. A study of 5,000 left-handers found that, if your mother was left-handed, even if your father was not, you would probably be a leftie. But, beyond that, human culture itself is to blame: warfare, etiquette, religion and superstition and the aforementioned education.
From the days of the Roman legions that conquered the world as they knew it, warfare has played a big part. Armor and arms were made for right-handed use. Customs grew up whereby clasping right arms (gradually evolving into the handshake) and placing an honored guest to a person's right showed trust and friendship, since the right was the defense arm and such show made a person vulnerable to attack. Later the bolt-action rifle was a lefty's nightmare, so that all World War II soldiers were required to shoot right-handed, even if proved they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn that way.
The Greek language is filled with words, which have been passed on to us, denigrating the left. Ancient religion and superstition were often tied to the sun's movement. Thus, the right, or movement to the right, became good and Godly while the opposite automatically became bad. The word "left" in Old English meant "weak", in German meant "awkward".
In Muslim countries the right hand has been used for centuries as the pot-dipping or feeding hand, while the left has been used exclusively for cleaning oneself at the toilet. A left-hander could thus commit a grievous breach of etiquette without knowing it, if the Arab culture wasn't understood.
In more recent years some counties - the U.S., Great Britain and Japan, for instances - have started doing something about this plight of our most unrecognized and misunderstood minority. In the U.S. there is a Left Handers International, located in Topeka, KS, which promotes an annual convention and will mail a glossy publication, that includes a catalog of items for lefties, and printed articles on topics like the biological origins of left-handedness. There is also a League of Left Handers and an International Left Handers Society. Japan has a left-hander's league with about 1500 members.
Being a leftie is no longer considered an aberration, but a specialized sales market. One of the early best-known markets was Aristers Company of Westport, CT. They handled such erotic ware as backward-running watches, booklets for left-handed needlecraft and calligraphy, and T-shirts that read "Leftys do it better!" Other early specialty shops in the U.S. included Left-Handed Complements in Jamaica Plains, MA; Left-Handed Solutions in New York; Left Hand World in San Francisco, Lefties Corner in Indiana, The Southpaw Shoppe in San Diego and Southpaw Unlimited in Rochester, NY. One of the earliest to see this need, in 1967, was a London shop called Anything Left-Handed, which a left-handed married couple opened.
Some bright teachers have shown that left-writers can turn their papers parallel to their arms to uncramp them. This led to more utilitarian school desks and to a host of writing materials - notebooks, fast-drying inks, rulers with reversed reading measurements, T-squares, address books and even checkbooks.
Schools, like the University of Washington, changed its dentistry school lab so equipment was usable for both left and right-handed workers. Fast food palace Burger King announced a left-handed Whopper, and had a big call for it, until it turned out to be an April Fool prank (in 1996).
Noting all this improvement in their lives, leftys might well give a cheer, "Left on!"
