OH, THOSE LEFTIES

I'm very right handed and it gets me in trouble when I attempt to gain my position to the right of everyone, except in politics.  



John MeEnroe and Jay Leno are left-handed.
~~~
Left-handed people were once called gauche, the dictionary meaning of which is "lacking ease or grace; unsophisticated and socially awkward."  


Clarence Darrow and Alexander the Great were left-handed.
~~~
Do the British walk on the left side of aisles in super markets or theaters?  They drive their cars on the left side of the road.


Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama were or are all left-handed.   
~~~
Do you  do the 'cut and switch' when eating meat   
                or
Do you eat the meat from your left hand after you cut it - European style?


Gayle Sayers and Larry Bird  were left-handed.
~~~
I found varied statistics on the percentage of the population that is left-handed, but 
the one that was most consistent was approximately 10%.


Prince Charles of England and Prince William of England are left-handed.  
~~~                                                                                              
August 13 is International Left Handers Day


Caroline Kennedy and Oprah Winfrey  are left-handed.
~~~                                                                                              
Ambidextrous people can use both hands with equal skill.   Famous examples are Lord Baden Powell, Martina Navratilova, Leonardo da Vinci.  According to one source, "right-handed people show strong left brain dominance, but the hemispheres of ambidextrous and left-handed people's brains are almost symmetrical."  I think I would want to read more on that assertion.  It comes from Mental_Floss, a magazine and online site "where knowledge junkies get their fix." 


My sister Alice (1927-1995)  was left handed.
~~~ 
She went to school at a time when left-handed students were forced to adapt to the Palmer Method, which meant the paper was placed on the desk slanted and favoring the right hand, and teachers and parents forced a left-handed child to use his or her right hand for writing.  

Once Alice  mastered writing left-handed with the paper on her desk in proper Palmer Method position, it was no longer a visible handicap to her.  She curled her arm and hand around that pencil and wrote upside down all of her life.  I can't even make my left hand get into that position. Her tortured hand position was a perfect reason for imperfect penmanship, but her writing was  exquisite.  It did not have the Palmer Method slant, but each letter was perfectly formed and spaced.

Alice was an accomplished seamstress.  When she was about twenty, the Singer Company sent her to Chicago for three weeks of training to be an instructor.  She taught sewing for years, made beautiful custom drapes (all pleats done by hand) and in later years taught tailoring classes.  On one of my, sadly infrequent, visits to Denver, we were talking about her class, and she showed me at least three one-sleeved suit jackets in her closet.  "I'm going to finish them one of these days," she laughed.  It seems it only takes making one sleeve to teach a class how to do it.  Actually, I took a tailoring class once, miles away from her, and made a sport jacket for Wayne - with one sleeve.  I never finished it.  She probably made each sleeve for the left arm and I probably made mine for the right arm.  No clean data on this!  I know Alice had to have left-handed scissors for her work.   They were and are not that difficult to find, but other utensils were

Alice taught me how to knit - left-handed - and how to sew, beginning with inserting a zipper on a skirt when I was a teenager.  She made me rip it out three times. It was dark green wool and I think she was teaching me that I didn't select my material well, either.  I also think that ripping-out thing was a little sisterly love, but I did eventually learn how to sew.  However, I have seen clothing she made over the years, for herself, for her girls and mine.  If she made it, you could turn a garment inside out and wear it.  If I made it, only the outside was fit to be seen in public.  I don't know if her skill had anything to do with her being left handed, but it doesn't matter.  Anything she made was first class workmanship.  I suspect she was a good teacher, too, simply because she would want to be kind to her students, and she would want them to learn.  


Jack the Ripper and the Boston Strangler were left-handed.
~~~
The bride walks down the aisle holding her father's right arm, his sword arm, to prevent him from attacking the groom.   When the bride is passed over, she stands to the left of the groom (freeing his right arm to defend himself.)

Michelangelo and Mozart were left-handed.
~~~
I've always thought sewing machines were made for left-handed people, and  many others have thought so, too.  Elias Howe and Isaac Singer, the inventors of the modern sewing machine, were both left-handed.  Rex Pulker, another left-handed man, invented a right-handed sewing machine.  

I looked on the internet for a left-handed sewing machine and all I found were sewing machines.  I enhanced my search skills and found this article in a blog called          
         
           Fashion-Incubator  Lessons 
             from a Sustainable Factory Floor

a trade blog with all kinds of information for workers, supervisors, management in the clothing industry.  As with most industries, the inside scoop was fascinating (FYI - That's part of the reason I do this blog - I keep learning new stuff.)  I found this particular post in  the site's archives HERE.
      
          Are sewing machines designed for the left handed?
              Posted by K. F. on May 6, 2013

Evidently Ms F. [I chose not to use names.] is a supervisor and she periodically informs her workers in this fashion. The next blog was about patterns, and another was about the best way to put a casing around elastic at the waist.   I wish I had seen this years ago.

Being a blog instead of the usual website, the workers from the 'factory floor' were able to comment and make suggestions or thank their supervisor for the information.   I read about twenty of the comments, which varied and could have been condensed to 'I didn't know that' or 'I've been doing that for a long time.'  The comments were not just short statements though, but well-contained thoughts, and there were many more comments than the few I read.  

For the article on left-handed sewing machines the comments were thoughtful, lengthy, detailed opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of using a left-handed machine, and the consensus seemed to be that both hands are needed for using the various parts of the machine and the materials to be sewn; therefore, practice with both hands was necessary.  Most felt that sitting directly in front of the needle was also of significant importance.

If you're interested to read more go HERE, or copy and paste the following:  http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/are-sewing-machines-designed-for-the-left-handed\  --  and if you like to sew, investigate the archives.  I only looked at a few articles, but it was fascinating reading and I got some sewing tips.


Charlie Chaplin and George Burns  were left-handed.
~~~
Left and Right Politics
In politics, the words mean much more than direction or handedness.

The left/right association with politics came after the French revolution. The legislative assembly when seated in front of  King Louis XVI, was arranged according to political affiliation.  The conservative Feuiants, who backed the king, sat to the right.  To his left sat the liberal Girondists and the radical Jacobins who wanted a demcratic government.   In the US, the seating is reversed but the politics is not. In Congress, the Republicans, who identify in the US as conservatives, sit on the left side and the Democrats, who identify in the US as progressives, sit on the right.


Helen Keller and Albert Schweitzer were left-handed.
~~~
I searched for items that were difficult for left-handed users and found the sites not particularly relevant, but I did find or think of many items that through the years have been problematic for left-handed people:  can openers, scissors, cork screws, a pencil sharpener with a handle for turning, serrated knives, typewriters, wooden cooking spoons, irons, jar lids, classroom desks, notebooks and pens.  Hand writing in general is geared to the right hand because left handed people routinely have their hand over what they have just written, meaning either lead from a pencil or ink from a pen tends to smear, while right handed people have their hands ahead of the writing.  Clockwise dials on clocks, car dashboards, ovens have a  right hand orientation.  Doors are set so a right-handed person can use a key easily, but a left-handed person is in an awkward position to use the key.  It's interesting to think why driver side car doors are left-hand friendly.  In a fast moving car, one wouldn't want a door to open.  Of course that means the passenger car doors are right-hand friendly!


Judy Garland and John F. Kennedy, Jr. were left-handed.
~~~ 
To read more aboout famous left-handed people go  HERE   or copy and paste the following link  http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/left.html.  Some of the names  came from this research by  M.K. Holder, Ph.D, at Indiana University and some were found by doing a search on 'famous people who are left handed' or ' . . . ambidextrous.'  Why we use left or right or both hands with dexterity is a subject that has no limits when it comes to research and speculation.