My Mom The Southpaw

A house of right-handedness and Siri is a dumbass

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

This is my reply to Sharon Johnson’s prompt-are you a “leftie”? If so, what challenges have you faced in life being a leftie? If not you, a child, sibling, or parent? Are you exclusively left-handed, or do you use your right hand for specific tasks?

While I am not left-handed……. my mom was left-handed as was my ex. Since the right hemisphere of the brain controls the left hand…..I was always told that I wasn’t of right mind. My ex was fond of saying my right-handedness was from whatever was left of my brain. Hmm.

My mom frequently freaked people out in a good way by how she wrote in cursive. In the states it is extremely common (or was since I don’t think they teach cursive writing these days) to see left-handers write with their hand curled over on itself and is noticeable on the page too. I’m told that is because they were taught to write as a right-hander with the same orientation of the paper. My mom had a teacher who insisted she learn as a left-hander and took the time to impress upon her the importance of doing so. My mom could write extremely fast in cursive and her cursive was perfect. Her fellow southpaws were always amazed.

Growing up the son of a southpaw the only thing that I remember being different was her insistence that the refrigerator door be set up for a left-hander……which opens to the left. Which seems odd to me as that leaves the dominant hand holding the door rather than removing stuff from the refrigerator. So long as the configuration of the kitchen will allow I’ve always changed the refrigerator door over to a left-hand door.

Apparently 11% of Americans are left-handed. Other than firearms set up for left-handed shooters I suppose the only other thing I run into is with baseball gloves, the left-hander wears it on their right hand. This was used to my advantage on a summer league team when my friend’s team was in a pinch at the deadline needing another player. He gave me a left-handers mitt for me to meet the coach. Coach took one look at my glove and signed me up thinking I was a southpaw. But hey, right-handed is better than nothing! lol

I asked Siri ‘How did the term southpaw come about?’ That AI dunce said baseball diamonds have home plate facing west and “left-handed pitchers face south”. Take a close look at this photo of Busch Stadium. That’s the St. Louis Arch in the background in St. Louis, MO which is on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Does that home plate look like it’s “facing west” to you? And if a pitcher is on the pitching mound facing south……they are looking directly at right field foul territory! Stupid bag of bolts!

The baseball field inside Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals! Photo by Ronni Kurtz on Unsplash

So for our baseball uninitiated international friends what the silicon dummy should have said is when the pitcher is on the pitching mound facing home plate………they are looking to the west and their left arm is toward the south. Take that silicon stupid!

The only thing the author can hit is a buffet and the only thing he can catch is a cold. Kickball, now that’s a game! Photo by Ewa Gillen on Unsplash

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