When You Hear or Read Stories

[Razors Edge ★]

...about left-handed folks whose parents/teachers/doctors/whatever tried to (or did) "convert" them to being right-handed, do you scratch your head and say "WTF?!?!?" like I do?

Seriously, 20th and 21st century, and we're STILL hearing stories about that????  How the heck does someone my age or younger have ANY sort of exposure to that?  Wacky.

[Kzoo]

What's the point of this thread?

 

[Razors Edge ★]

6 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

What's the point of this thread?

 

Has there EVER been a point?  I think you might have lost a few steps.  The old Kzoo would have remembered that!

[Kzoo]

20 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Has there EVER been a point?  I think you might have lost a few steps.  The old Kzoo would have remembered that!

I'm as good once as I ever was.  I think I used that one up earlier today... (Felix)

 

[jsharr ★]

I am left handed.  I think they tried conversion in early school for me

[JerrySTL ★]

A nun tried to do that to me in the first grade. She failed back in 1960.

When I was training aircraft mechanics, I would put right-handers on a job that had to be done with the left hand and the opposite with lefties. Lefties seldom had a problem but righties often struggled a lot. I  would have to tell them to use their left hand.

[Prophet Zacharia]

My older son is left handed. I never tried to make him a righty. In fact, I encouraged him to learn how to pitch. And kick field goals. Neither took.

[Randomguy]

Left handed people are inherently sinister, and conversion is important.

[ChrisL]

My son played ball with a lefty who was a phenomenal catcher. I guess Left handed catchers aren’t a thing so his dad converted him righty when catching, lefty when pitching & playing 1st base.  He was also a great switch hitter.

Kid played collegiate ball as a 1st baseman/pitcher so ended up not needing the right handed catching skill set. But I was amazed how well he caught off handed.

[shootingstar]

1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

...about left-handed folks whose parents/teachers/doctors/whatever tried to (or did) "convert" them to being right-handed, do you scratch your head and say "WTF?!?!?" like I do?

Seriously, 20th and 21st century, and we're STILL hearing stories about that????  How the heck does someone my age or younger have ANY sort of exposure to that?  Wacky.

It's old thinking. My mother commented on a grand-daughter's left-handness.  My sister, the mother didn't listen.  Good.

[MickinMD ★]

4 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

...about left-handed folks whose parents/teachers/doctors/whatever tried to (or did) "convert" them to being right-handed, do you scratch your head and say "WTF?!?!?" like I do?

Seriously, 20th and 21st century, and we're STILL hearing stories about that????  How the heck does someone my age or younger have ANY sort of exposure to that?  Wacky.

My parents, born in 1922 and 1924, grew up  being taught left handed people are lazy and won't accomplish anything.

When I was born and began to do things with my left hand, they'd move it into my right hand.  But soon it would be back in my left hand and they gave up trying to make me right-handed.

My sister is also left handed.  We have graduate degrees in chemistry and nursing.

My mother's sister also tried to get her youngest son to be right handed and failed.  He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and was a pioneer in "neural network" search engines for IBM.

[JerrySTL ★]

Since the brain’s right hemisphere controls the left side of the body, only lefties are in their right mind.

[Longjohn ★]

Left handed people are the only ones in their right mind.

 

 

When I was a kid it was almost the reverse of them forcing a kid to use his right hand. At some point I picked up a spoon or a crayon in my left hand and they told me I was left handed. I could have easily used my right hand if someone would have just told me to try your other hand. I have no trouble whatsoever with scissors in my right hand, bowling, batting, throwing, hammering a nail. At work the verniers are set up for right hand use. I would wear a glove on my left hand for handling shims, right hand bare for measuring and writing measurements down. I think the right handed and left handed stuff is baloney. We have two hand, they both work. People type with both hands. If you can type you can write.

Funniest thing I noticed was watching right handed people cut a steak with the knife in their righ hand, the fork in their left hand. Then they set both utensils down and switch hands to put the piece of steak they just cut in their mouth with the fork in their right hand. Shirley they could hit their mouth with the fork in their left hand?

[groupw]

Happened to my mom. She started out left handed. Her grade school teacher converted her. They went to a 1 or 2 room country school so she had the same teacher for a few years. I sometimes wonder if Mom’s teacher wasn’t influenced by her polio. It affected Mom’s left leg (her left foot is 2 sizes smaller than the right). But I don’t think it affected her hands to my knowledge. I remember growing up she would throw a ball or frisbee or something and she would consciously have to decide what hand she would use. 
My son is decidedly left handed. We never tried to change it though sometimes I had a harder time teaching him how to do something because I had to flip it for him to see it right. 
When he played Little League, being a lefty hitter freaked out a lot of young pitchers. He got hit by the pitcher more than he hit the ball. 

[Dottleshead ★]

5 hours ago, jsharr said:

I am left handed.  I think they tried conversion in early school for me

What if... and I mean strictly hypothetical of course... if your sex organ was an outie but you felt in your heart it should have been an innie?? Should they try and convert that too? Nevermind. I really don't want to know. 

[jsharr ★]

17 minutes ago, Dottles said:

What if... and I mean strictly hypothetical of course... if your sex organ was an outie but you felt in your heart it should have been an innie?? Should they try and convert that too? Nevermind. I really don't want to know. 

I kept shoving it in and it kept poppin out so I gave up

[Dottleshead ★]

9 minutes ago, jsharr said:

I kept shoving it in and it kept poppin out so I gave up

POTD

[JerrySTL ★]

11 hours ago, Longjohn said:

Funniest thing I noticed was watching right handed people cut a steak with the knife in their righ hand, the fork in their left hand. Then they set both utensils down and switch hands to put the piece of steak they just cut in their mouth with the fork in their right hand. Shirley they could hit their mouth with the fork in their left hand?

This must be a learned behavior. Europeans don't eat this way. In fact it's a way the Europeans can tell who are the tourists.

[Razors Edge ★]

11 hours ago, Longjohn said:

I think the right handed and left handed stuff is baloney. We have two hand, they both work. People type with both hands. If you can type you can write.

I think, as a leftie, that's what many of us think to a lesser extent as we have adapted to the right-handed world.  I actually am left handed for "fine" motor skills like writing or using tweezers, but generally right handed for "gross" motor skills like throwing, punching, etc..  I can write "adequately" with my right hand, but the left is the more trained and easier, neater, faster to use.  But, when I was in the UK driving a manual through the streets of London, I had no issue with shifting using my left hand - but plenty of issues with knowing which lane to be in   I also drive folks nuts on a tennis court as I switch hands all the time, so my forehand can be from the left or right, and same with my backhand.  "You can't do that!" has been argued many times when playing, and I'm like WTF are you complaining about??? I don't realize I do, but it drives the opponent nuts.

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

Lifelong lefty here. Like @Longjohn I’m more ambidextrous as I grew up in a righty world. I don’t recall any righty-conversion therapy when I was young. But I grew up north of LA in the Valley. Went to Catholic school but the nuns didn’t seem to care which hand you wrote with as long as it was proper cursive and followed the lessons of the day. I was in second grade when I realized that I preferred to write with my left hand. I had already been taught to throw and bat right handed so that never changed. 

[petitepedal ★]

You guys would be laughing at me right now..

How do you get the last of the food on your fork . It is taking me longer to eat!

[Parr8hed]

15 hours ago, ChrisL said:

My son played ball with a lefty who was a phenomenal catcher. I guess Left handed catchers aren’t a thing so his dad converted him righty when catching, lefty when pitching & playing 1st base.  He was also a great switch hitter.

Kid played collegiate ball as a 1st baseman/pitcher so ended up not needing the right handed catching skill set. But I was amazed how well he caught off handed.

That's pretty impressive.  Softball seems to have a few lefty catchers.  I've seen a few second basement as well.  Sucks to make the play at one, but easier to turn the double with a runner on.  Mostly just first base/pitchers though.

There are a lot of people that try to turn their kids around to the other side of the plate in softball.  The little super fast lefty slap hitters are all the rage in college ball.  We have played teams that have 3 lefty slappers, power hitter, and 3 more lefty slappers in the lineup.  It's deadly!  People make a lot of money teaching right handed hitters to slap from the left.

[Razors Edge ★]

51 minutes ago, Old No. 7 said:

I was in second grade when I realized that I preferred to write with my left hand. I had already been taught to throw and bat right handed so that never changed. 

One of my older sisters is also a leftie.  We both throw and bat right-handed.  Not sure how that happened but likely because my dad threw and hit right handed so that's just how we learned????  All our gloves were right handed (ie for your left hand so you could throw right), and our hockey sticks - if they had a curved blade - were  right handed.  That was frustrating for sure - switching from left to right to left hand with the stick and realizing the damn stick you had picked was - for some reason - hand specific.  I haven't played hockey since I was a kid, so no idea if we just had wacky sticks or it is normal for them to be left or right handed.

[ChrisL]

15 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

That's pretty impressive.  Softball seems to have a few lefty catchers.  I've seen a few second basement as well.  Sucks to make the play at one, but easier to turn the double with a runner on.  Mostly just first base/pitchers though.

There are a lot of people that try to turn their kids around to the other side of the plate in softball.  The little super fast lefty slap hitters are all the rage in college ball.  We have played teams that have 3 lefty slappers, power hitter, and 3 more lefty slappers in the lineup.  It's deadly!  People make a lot of money teaching right handed hitters to slap from the left.

That was my daughter. She played HS softball at about 110 lbs and no power. All speed & glove.  Her coach flipped her to a lefty slap hitter and that’s how she got a majority of her hits. Beating out infield hits. Her Sr year she developed more strength and started getting hits that would drop in the outfield. 

She also got HBP a lot, led the league in that stat...  Her last HS AB was a hit by pitch, stole second, scored on a hit. Her HS career in a nutshell..

[Parr8hed]

Just now, ChrisL said:

That was my daughter. She played HS softball at about 110 lbs and no power. All speed & glove.  Her coach flipped her to a lefty slap hitter and that’s how she got a majority of her hits. Beating out infield hits. Her Sr year she developed more strength and started getting hits that would drop in the outfield. 

She also got HBP a lot, led the league in that stat...  Her last HS AB was a hit by pitch, stole second, scored on a hit. Her HS career in a nutshell..

Awesome.  A good slapper can really wreak havoc on the infielders.  

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

@Razors Edge I played tennis like you do; constantly changing hands for a better shot. My backhand was good enough but I could switch hands faster than changing footwork to get in position. 

[ChrisL]

2 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

Awesome.  A good slapper can really wreak havoc on the infielders.  

I told this story before I’m sure but my daughter played Center Field.  On our field, outfielders faced west and so for afternoon games were looking into a setting sun.  A girl hit a high foul ball in deep left pretty close to the left field line. The Left Fielder lost it in the sun and as I’m watching the ball & left fielder thinking shit she lost it I totally missed my daughter tracking the ball from center and was 1/2 step away from catching the ball.

All speed & glove...