Out of Left Field

In first grade, I still remember learning

the alphabet—straight lines at angles

for the letter “A”, a few curves for letter

“B.” Capitals were somewhat different

than lower case. I preferred “Cs” and “Os”

except for size, they pretty much remained

the same. Remember singing the alphabet

song, a-b-c-d-e-f-g…? Teacher told me I held

my pencil correctly except with the left hand.

My grandpa, being from the Old Country, told

my parents that they should switch directions

for me, but fortunately they never did. This

was a free country, after all, and being a lefty

felt perfectly normal for me, except when I

had to write on the right side of my notebook,

and then the darned spiral or binding got in the

way. I suppose fair is fair, though. The right

handers had the same problem when they had

to write on the left side of their notebook. I

had another lesson to learn—the world was

just messed up that way. I eventually dis-

covered notebooks with the spiral bind at

top of the page, but in most of my classes,

wouldn’t you know, they were not allowed.

I wasn’t always conflicted. On the baseball

field at play, I threw and batted right-handed.

I still got hit by wild pitches occasionally, and

ironically mostly from pitchers, who like

me, couldn’t throw worth a damn with their

left hand. In life sometimes things manage to

even out. Today, I type my words mostly with

a computer where I use both hands the same.

Actually, I should say one finger on each hand.

I never learned to type all that well. These days,

hunt and peck is more my game.

Chris Hanch 4-27-19