On The Bright Side

by Kay Hafner

The last I heard, approximately 15 percent of the population is left-handed. This means that most of you reading at the breakfast table will drink your coffee, eat your toast, pour your juice or reach for the sugar with your right hand. I happen to have a lot of recessive genes--blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin, lousy eyesight--but being left-handed tops the list of what makes me different from other people I know. 

At one point, I had a lot of fun with the whole "left-handed people are the only ones in their right minds" thing. I bought left-handed notebooks, left-handed kitchen implements and got pencils with my name engraved so I could read it while writing. In the '80s there was a store in Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace that carried only specialty leftystuff. I bought something every time I went in.

It's not that I thought lefties were better; I was just thrilled to share a bond with others who knew what it was like to be set apart in this way.

Eventually I toned my "lefty pride" down a bit. I realized that a lot of it was just marketing and hype. Left-handed notebooks--ones that have the binding on the right--are just regular notebooks with the front cover on the back. Left-handed utensils are nice, except that other family members can't use them. Besides, I found that I actually peeled potatoes better and faster the way I always did: using a regular peeler with my right hand. Finally, not being able to read promotional copy on pens and pencils while writing is more of a problem for the advertisers than for the left-handed user.

Being left-handed may make me a minority of sorts, but it's more like being a novelty, like an adult at a Backstreet Boys concert.  At one time, lefties were shunned; now we're just considered an oddity because people don't know where to place us at a sit-down dinner. 

When you think about it, we're all in a minority group in one way or another, at one time or another in our lives. Even within a minority we might be a majority, and visa versa. I'm in the majority as a white person, but in the minority as a blue-eyed person; yet, I'm in the majority of blue-eyed people because I am blonde.

It all depends on how you look at the statistics. People who voted for Bill Clinton (a lefty) were the majority in the last election, yet the Republicans who voted for Clinton would probably be considered a minority of that majority. (Did you realize four of the past five presidents have been left-handed?)

If we can all be subdivided one way or the other into a minority or two, and if we all know how bad it feels to be looked down on just because we don't think or act or look like someone else, why are we so critical of those who are different from us?

My grandfather distrusted men with beards. He thought that such men were hiding something. Of course, in his time and social circle, bearded men were a minority. I don't know whether he had a bad childhood encounter with a bearded man or if he'd heard this statement from his parents and grew to believe it was true. Maybe he was just jealous that he had to shave every morning and the bearded men didn't. Yet, in his prejudice he missed the point that there are plenty of clean-cut dishonest people in the world--the wolves in sheep's clothing --who have more to hide than anyone who chooses not to shave every day.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the man who distrusted bearded men was, in turn, disliked because he was bald? Put two such people in blinders and leave them in a room alone together and who knows--they might get along. But as long as they concentrate on differences and perceived defects, they will never discover their similarities and shared strengths. When my daughter was a baby, I wondered which side of the genetic fence she would be on. It was tempting to try and influence her choice. Who would know if I casually switched the crayon from one hand to the other? Since it seemed likely that my husband's mother quietly discouraged him from being a southpaw, she might have actually inherited a predisposition from both of us.

Well, I didn't and she didn't. And I love her anyway.

Kay Hafner is a writer who lives in Queensbury. She may reached via e-mail at [email protected]

copyright � Kay Hafner 2000