Month: July 2023

The Bible teaches us to love all people, and to love others as we love ourselves. But this can be very challenging, especially when it comes to those who are not like the rest of us.

I’m speaking, of course, about left-handed people.

Yes, lefties. You know who you are. The eight percent of human beings who need their own special scissors, golf clubs and spiral notebooks. The ones whose hands are always dirty because they drag them along the paper as they write something. The ones who complain that doors and refrigerators don’t open in the correct direction. In school they struggled because the desks were connected to the chairs on the wrong side.

They are different. They require certain adjustments to your lifestyle. I know this because I married a lefty. We learned, for example, that when Sharon and I go to a restaurant and sit on the same side of the table, I can never be to her left. Otherwise, by the time our meal has ended, our elbows and arms will be black and blue from banging into each other. I failed miserably at trying to show her how to swing a tennis racket or a golf club because everything is reversed.

Life hasn’t been easy for Sharon. When she was a child there was no such thing as a left-handed scissors, or at least they were very rare. She had to teach herself to cut with her opposite hand. Her grandmother insisted she hold her spoon in her right hand. Grandma’s generation thought of lefties as being defective, even handicapped. Some went so far as to believe they were possessed by an evil spirit. I’ll bet you didn’t know that the word “sinister”, which connotes evil or darkness, comes from a Latin word that literally translates to “on the left side”.

The entire English lexicon has been unkind to southpaws. If you come up with an idea that is crazy or stupid, it is said to be coming “out of left field”. If you insult someone but phrase it in a nice way, it is “a left-handed compliment”. One who is clumsy and uncoordinated might be considered to have “two left feet”.

I have found it helpful to think of lefties as being, not so much different, but “special”. There’s actually some evidence of this. Lefties are considered to be more creative. Leonardo Da Vinci and Helen Keller were left handed. So were Michelangelo and Aristotle. Left-handers tend to excel in the fine arts, such as music (Mozart, Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix, Lady Gaga) or theater (Julia Roberts, Keanu Reaves, Morgan Freeman, Judy Garland, Charlie Chaplain).

Some of them are smart and enterprising too. Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Madame Curie and Julius Caeser were all left-handed. Prince William as well. I read somewhere that, whenever William and Kate are side-by-side in front of a crowd, William will always be to Kate’s left, so that he can wave to the masses with his dominant hand.

Left-handed athletes are considered to have an advantage. Babe Ruth and LeBron James are good examples. Two of Alabama’s most famous quarterbacks, Kenny Stabler and Tua Tagovailoa, threw with the wrong hand.

Lefties even have their own special day. In fact it is coming up shortly, on August 13.

Still, despite my best efforts, I find myself subconsciously biased against these unfortunate folks. I hand a ball to my two year old grandson and encourage him to throw it back. I always put the ball in his right hand. Sometimes he tosses it back, other times he transfers the ball to his left and chucks it. Guess he hasn’t decided yet. Scientists still don’t know exactly why we choose one hand over the other. Statistics seem to indicate that genetics play a role. Another theory is that it has to do with how the baby is positioned in the womb. Others think the mother watched too many Three Stooges movies while pregnant.

I just figure God intended for everybody to be right-handed. After all, when you take an oath to tell the truth in court, “so help you God”, you are told to raise your right hand, not your left. Soldiers are told to salute with the right hand. During the pledge of allegiance, “one nation, under God”, we are told to place our right hand over our hearts.

But not to worry, lefties. God still loves you. And so do the rest of us. We’ll just try our best not to notice while you put your belt on backwards.

Let me apologize in advance if this column seems a bit incoherent. I just woke up from a nap. Which is weird. Because I didn’t plan to take a nap. It just sort of happened. I was sitting there in the living room watching TV, and I nodded off. I think I was out about thirty minutes.

This seems to be a growing trend. For the great majority of my life, the only place I’ve ever been able to sleep is in the comfort of my own bed, at night. I’ve never been able to nap during the day. I’ve always been envious of people who can sleep at will, any time, anywhere.

My dad was great at that. He would come home from work, eat dinner, sit down in his recliner, and within five minutes he was out, mouth wide open, in full snore mode, sound asleep. When he took me to the barber shop for a haircut, which took about fifteen minutes (it doesn’t take long to get a flat top), Dad would spend that time zonked out on a chair in the waiting area. If he had thirty minutes to wait before dinner was ready, he would announce he was going to use the time for a power nap. And he did, conking out almost immediately. In church he got many a jab in the ribs from mom, who would catch him drifting off.

I’ve had friends with the same ability. They could nap on demand, just by closing their eyes and leaning back on something, anything. The other day I was leading a Bible study and, halfway through it, two members of the group had fallen asleep. Some leaders may have been annoyed. I was actually more jealous than anything else. I could never sleep in the middle of a gathering of any kind.

I never slept well in hotels, could never drop off in airports or in a car. I always want to be the driver on long family journeys, because it’s so boring being a passenger, and not being able to sleep. You can only read so many billboards, or watch so many farm fields rolling by, hoping to spot a cow or a horse, or a disgruntled farmer frowning at you because you are in an air conditioned car, and he is not.

But now, as I navigate through my septuagenarian years, all of that seems to be changing. I find myself dozing off all over the place. Watching TV in the living room, reading a book, working a crossword puzzle, or brainstorming a column. It’s so strange. Kind of like losing time off your life. One minute I’m sitting there watching Pat Sajak and Vanna White come out at the opening of Wheel of Fortune. The next thing I know, they’re congratulating the winner of the bonus round and the closing credits are rolling. What happened? Thirty minutes of my existence passed and I can’t account for it.

What makes my unscheduled siestas embarrassing is that, when I do fall asleep, I become my father’s son. Just like him, my jaw automatically drops like a broken drawbridge and my yap is wide open. The result is a snore that, I am told, rivals the roar of any train bustling through Trussville. It is loud enough that our little dachshund jumps up on my chest and licks my face just to make it stop.

The ironic part about these unintentional snoozes is that I feel groggier when I wake up than I did before. Which makes me wonder, are frequent naps a good or a bad thing? Naturally, I consulted that unimpeachable source of credibility, the internet. Of course, immediately, I found two completely conflicting answers. One article stated napping restores energy level, makes you more alert, and may even improve your memory. The next article revealed napping can be a sign of diabetes, heart disease and depression. (deep sigh)

Well, I’ve decided I’m not going to worry about it. I’m going to think of it as just part of the natural process of growing older. My sweet mother lived to be 103. She was sharp as a tack until the final few years, and she napped every day. Sometimes all day.

It turns out there is a real art form to napping. Researchers say you should nap in the early afternoon, between one and three pm. Try to relax some place where it’s dark and quiet. Turn off your electronics. Avoid caffeine and alcohol. They also say you should keep your naps very short. Fifteen minutes or less. Set an alarm if you have to. They claim even just five minutes is helpful.

Really? Five minutes? Hardly seems worth the effort. My snoring hasn’t even had a chance to build up to wind tunnel volume in five minutes.

This would mean that, in the time you took to read this column, you could have instead taken a nap, woke up, and felt refreshed and more energetic.

I probably shouldn’t have told you that.

(You can read more from Ken at kenlassblog.net)