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Butch Furse
I tend to be somewhat partial (and sympathetic) to lefthanders since I, too, am a “lefty.” I’ve been ribbed that I twisted my wrist to write because early teachings made me place my paper on the desk at the same angle as right-handed classmates. I found I couldn’t be a catcher playing baseball because no company made left-hand catcher mitts. I couldn’t be a mechanic or a carpenter because most all tools were designed for right-handed people. Even though I grew up in a newspaper environment I nearly flunked a college course when the prof caught me using my own “lefthander way” hand setting a line of type to override the inconvenience of the class’s right-hand composing stick.
I always felt that over the years lefthanders had a lot of challenges to overcome even after typewriters and computers became commonplace in the business world. My belief that we lefthanders had to work just a little harder to get a job done has now been reinforced. I’ve come up with the finding that the average person’s left hand does 56 percent of the typing.
And there’s more! “Stewardesses” (12 letters) is the longest word typed with only the left hand; “lollipop” (just eight letters) with only your right.
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Here’s a little smile generated by a woman who was trying hard to get ketchup out of a bottle. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her 4-year-old daughter to answer the phone.
The little girl said, “Mommy can’t come to the phone to talk to you right now. She’s hitting the bottle.”
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In the early weeks of school, teachers and parents can be faced with some pretty serious challenges. On the first day of school, a first grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, “The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents.”
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A little girl had just concluded her first week of school and upon arrival at home announced to her mother, “I’m just wasting my time, she said. “I can’t read, I can’t write, and they won’t even let me talk!”
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For most of us, our Thanksgiving holiday has been dampened by the virus, political issues and other challenges. But, let us not forget our great country and the freedom we citizens enjoy. It is still the best in the world. We are blessed.
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RL Furse is publisher emeritus of the News-Register
