Growing up in small-town Forney in the 1950s, my sister and I were quite often “playmates,” since the neighborhood was not large. Needless to say, since we were fairly close in “years on earth,” we quite often “needled” each other about who had more various abilities. I let her know that since I was the first-born and a boy, I was the “special heir” and the oldest and wisest. She let me know that girls were supposed to be the “favorites” of the family and that being “left-handed” from birth made her part of a “special smarter/more creative” group of people!
And when I was old enough to do a little research, I found that she might be right about the “special group” designation! Throughout the years I taught in Forney, I noticed that my “advanced and honors classes” had a left-handed composition of about twice the percent of “lefties” in the general population.
The following is a list of “TWELVE LEFTIES” that I think are examples of “NOTABLE LEFT-HANDERS.” I have included some of their photos.
1. Leonardo da Vinci: Probably one of the most famous of all time, this LEFTY wrote “mirror writing,” writing his text “backward,” maybe because writing script letters in ink left-handed was messy from left-to-right, the standard form! Some early writers supposed that da Vinci’s left-handedness forced him to see and think in special ways. Apparently, this great Renaissance painter, sculptor, draftsman, architect, and engineer was a GENIUS and a “humanist.”
2. Jimi Hendrix: He was maybe the best and most talented guitar player of all time and preferred to use a “right-handed Fender Stratocaster” that he slung upside down across his shoulders and “plucked” the strings in reverse order, producing a unique sound. He could also, upon occasion, play the standard right-handed way, using the same instrument, but nearly always played “left.”
3. Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and other fictional/whimsical fantasies made him famous, and maybe he was a stereotypical left-handed citizen in a right-handed world, like the “White Knight” in Through the Looking Glass.
4. Mozart: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (what an amazingly stupendous name!) was a “musical genius composer,” who profoundly shaped classical music with a dominant left hand!
5. Helen Keller: BLIND, DEAF, and LEFT-HANDED (I probably would have “just sat” in ignorance and felt sorry for myself!), this amazing woman could not be stopped once she “got going.”
6. BABE RUTH: (How did you know he was in my top three of this “group of twelve” all-time greats?) Ruth was one of the best, if not the best, baseball players of all time. This lefty set pitching and slugging records and accomplished feats that were stupendous for his time and still are today! He most likely would have been the greatest pitcher ever had the team not needed/wanted his bat in the line-up every day, instead of every 4th day!
7. Michelangelo: This innate left-hander (who apparently chose to use his dominant left hand only for working with “mediums” that called for force, such as carving, chiseling, and hammering marble) trained himself from a young age to work with his right hand and did so (experts believe) on most of his wonderful drawings.
8. Henry Ford: Lefthanded American Industrialist, who established the Ford Motor Company and played a major role in the assembly line and mass-production, this talented, hard-working machinist developed wellbuilt, affordable automobiles that even the middle class could afford. This experimenter was encouraged by Thomas Edison, became an engineer, and revolutionized the entire automobile industry. I also like him because he was, for the most part, a “pacifist.”
9. Celine Dion: I chose this mightily talented and legendary left-handed female singer, well-known for ballads, such as ”It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” “The Power of Love,” “My Heart Will Go On,” and “Because You Loved Me,” because my wife took me along with her to a “Dion Concert,” and some of her singing brought tears to my eyes. LOVE seems to emanate from her eyes!
10. MOTHER TERESA: If Jesus has special places in Heaven for special people, I believe that the top one is reserved for this left-handed lady who lived a self-less and amazingly kind life, serving her Lord and other less fortunate humans.
11. Mark Twain: (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (American author, humorist, satirist, essayist, and radical thinker/writer concerning imperialism, civil rights, and organized religion) Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—Twain was forced to take a job to support his family at the age of eleven years and later became a licensed river pilot. Faulkner called him the “Father of American Literature.”
12. Ronald Reagan: This 40th President of the United States of America had been a famous actor and the Governor of California (turned the State budget from a deficit to a surplus) before becoming President at the age of nearly 70 years. His tenure marked a re-alignment towards conservative policies, and he left office with an approval rating of 68%, one of the highest of modern Presidents. Many historians today place him in the higher ranks of all American Presidents.
And there are so many more that you might like to research and study, especially if you need to prove to your sister that you are “ahead” of her!
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