Charlemagne did it. So did Jimi Hendrix, Cary Grant and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.
What, exactly, did these wildly disparate souls have in common?
They all wrote with their left hands.
Of course, lefties have been around since the proverbial cavemen and -women drew left-handed on cave walls. But to an avowed righty like me, southpaws still carry a certain mystique. What marvel of genetics makes 10 percent of the population use their left hands, instead of their right, to reach for cookies in the cookie jar, pie in the sky and jam on the lower shelf?
I’ve always wondered what life as a lefty is like. WOSU Public Media boasts a bumper crop of lefties on its staff and, on the eve of Saturday's Left-Handers’ Day holiday, I recently took the opportunity to hear two of my lefty coworkers converse about the travails of living life left-handed.
Listen below as WOSU Senior Broadcast Technician Eric French and Director of Digital Media Nick Houser discuss weird scissors, unfriendly desks, awkward elbow moments and other stumbling blocks of living southpaw in a right-handed world:
This week, The American Sound pays a Left-Handers’ Day tribute to lefties everywhere with fun music by the witty Leroy Anderson. Also tune in for Michael Daugherty’s fun homage to Liberace, a beautiful American symphony – and more.
Join me for loads of lefty fun on The American Sound, Saturday at 6 p.m. and Tuesday at 7 p.m. on Classical 101.
