Francis by Patrick J. Marrin for May 17, 2018

If you are skilled with your right hand, you are dexterous. If you are skilled with your left hand, you are sinister. If you are equally skilled with both hands, you are ambidextrous. If you are like me and are equally unskilled with both hands, you are spastic.

I am “dumb from the neck down.”

Hubby went to school in the south, and was forced to use his right hand. He is ambidextrous, which means you can’t read his writing at all.

I cam home from my first day in school, trying to use my right hand. My dad, who was a left-handed CofE clergyman from Australia, took himself to the school the next morning, and met with the teacher. “My daughter is left-handed, y’see? If it’s good enough for the king, it’s good enough for her. Do you understand?”

My mum said he told her the teacher didn’t know if she should salute or genuflect.

I find that so odd. No one EVER tried to make me write with my right hand. I figured forcing people to do that was a long-dead practice.

My poor Granny was forced to write with her right hand, though she was left-handed. She told us they made her keep her left hand at her side or they would tie it to the chair! She never did get left and right straight her entire life.

“You call me odd… but I’ll get even!”

I knew my niece was a lefty when, at three, I put a crayon in her right hand and she changed it to the left. She was fortunate to have a 1st grade teacher who was also a lefty and had things like two-person scissors that she could show her how to use.

Hubby was left handed. He often asked me what he’d written. I could decipher most of it.

I was born in 1942, and it was still the practice in some schools to force kids to use their rights hands. As I said, my dad made short work of that nonsense. If you look at your thumbs, the nail on the dominant hand is larger and wider. You can tell this even in the cradle.

It looks like Francis is hiding his smile behind his book in the last frame.

You might even say that the teachers actions were gauche*. *French for left, also defined as; lacking social grace, sensitivity, or acuteness; awkward; crude; or tactless. Sorry for sounding like a Thesaurus but I just couldn’t pass on the absurdity. I am a lefty who was converted to a righty.

I was born in 1958 and forced to use my right hand. I still don’t hold a pen correctly in that hand. I brush my teeth left handed since nobody ever made me do it right handed. It took me a very long time to learn to step off on the correct foot when throwing. I’m still left eye dominant as well.

I’m right handed, but my teachers tried to force me to be like most people in many other ways. I never succeeded at it. After more than half a century, I finally like being special, too.

About 10% of the population is left-handed. However since the world is designed for the other 90%, many of them adapt.

I worked a program to issue gas masks to Marines. We pre-configured them for right-handed and left-handed shooters. Half of the lefties choose to shoot right-handed. Probably because that’s they way the learned.

So, it’s off to the Leftorium with the lot of you, neigh-diddly-bors.

I have a friend whose parents forced her to use her right hand, and then made fun of her because she was “clumsy”. We were chatting with a group of gals in the cafeteria and I did the “Show me your thumbs” thing, and she suddenly looked at me as if she was going to cry. “I’m left handed! I’m not clumsy! I’m just left handed.” She picked up her fork with her left hand, and never looked back. She said her parents were furious.