Hot Flashes – A Southpaw Going South

By Sue Langenberg

There is a saying that left-handers are in their right mind. The pun refers to the dominance of the right side of the brain. I also think that it has something to do with which side the devil and angel rest. At any rate, with fewer of us lefties around, you just get used to swimming upstream.

I never thought about it because I just fell out of the womb with my left hand holding a yellow box of Crayola crayons, all in a rainbow, ready for the coloring books. Even then, I abhorred rules about staying within the lines, but that’s another story.

In those days, many still thought left handedness was an affliction of misfortune, like some sort of handicap that must be corrected. And, like the fashionable tonsils removal brigade, convinced that there are certain useless organs in the body that must be eradicated on schedule, lefthanders should be forced to switch, like it or not. Otherwise, a social embarrassment.

Luckily, I was surrounded by a grandmother or two that thought my crayoned drawings of dogs that looked like ironing boards with four stick feet and misshapen trees like bad hair days were works of art. All with my left hand. Had they switched me, I would still be stuttering about how I couldn’t stand being in the same room with someone beating a Swiss steak.

The term southpaw seems to have a history within the baseball stadium about which players face which direction of the afternoon sun and which hand to pitch, or something like that. I got lost in the definition because I wasn’t in my right mind at the time. Or maybe the devil on my right shoulder forced my eyes to glaze over.
So as a determined southpaw, I did everything with my left hand. That would include writing my name, throwing a ball and waving at the cute boys. Scissors were an immediate problem, so I had to stutter awhile in grade school to adjust to the right-handed kind, having no choice. But at least the teacher didn’t beat a Swiss steak in the classroom while we did our little art projects.

Then came the higher education chairs with built in arms. Sure there was a lefty one around and I learned quickly to do a foot race to claim “dibs,” lest have another southpaw beat me out. Then I’d have to curl my way around the right handed chair and look like a snail, or properly called French escargot, not to be confused with food that you beat with a mallet.

So, except for a few glitches along the way, like having someone hand you something to sign and, of all the nerve, do it all wrong with pen and proper angle, life goes on for us southpaws.

Then the other day I picked up some knitting. It might have been an ordinary event but in my case, an addiction like none other. If a day goes by without knitting in my life, I become dry-mouthed, suffer delirium tremens and must check in to the local Knit-wit Rehab Facility for Goofy Southpaws. Two stitches and my left wrist throbbed like a percussion jam session.

Maybe all those art projects, throwing baseballs and waving at the cute guys finally caught up with me. I panicked as I saw my entire life disappear into a fog of ineptness. I couldn’t picture how I would get through the day holding my coffee cup in my right hand. Or signing something with my right hand.

I might be stuttering for awhile, however, because I am not quite in my right mind.