A few of my more enlightened and astute blog followers have pointed out what they consider as an error regarding my use of “right-brain,” depicting some of the feeble-minded things males of our species do and say. I admit that these intelligent and well-read followers were correct, however, being a male I have an excuse. I was left-handed, ambidextrous and slightly dyslexic! So for most guys, they were left-brain, for me, I bounced between the two sides – confusing not only myself but everybody else!
When I came into this world, lo these many years ago, at an early age it was clear my brain contained a certain mental deficiency likely caused by my forefathers, who came from Northern Scotland where it never got much over the temperature of 10°F. Many of them suffered from frost bite of the brain and I suggest it’s possible that this crept into the gene pool and became part of the family DNA train. At any rate, I am told, but don’t remember, that at an early age I could not make my mind up about much of anything other than when it was time to eat, and would do many things with both hands and sometimes backwards.
I remember being called ambidextrous and thought it was a derogatory comment about my family’s shortage of Highland cultural content, by not being able to play the bagpipes, or for having backed Bonny Prince Charles, which is why they got run out of the old country to begin with. In those days the English had no sense of humor! I still have nightmares about receiving baseball gloves, one for the right hand and one for the left hand. I must assure you that this left psychological scars and has affected my Id. For you left-brain types, the Id is not part of the physiology of man, but as Sigmund and friends pointed out – can be a major brain flatulence.
At the proper age I was shoved into a highly-touted parochial kindergarten, and promptly felt totally abandoned by my family, and unfortunately based on some early stories that I heard, could not find a great deal of fault for this decision. The teachers within the school had a calling, or call it a habit, which was to instill in each of its students those things the current social norm dictated as an imperative behavioral pattern.
I started this journey at a little over four, full of childish wonder in anticipation of all the great new things that would be brought to my attention and thus, would be able to conquer the world. Little did I know I was considered somewhat backward and destined to become a public nuisance. The public nuisance part came true, but I was far from backward. I was more sideways!
In those days, in that particular parochial society, left-handed people were considered the “Devils tools” and the teachers, with their habits and methods, had an objective to correct and sanctify any of their charge-lings that showed this less than desirable trait, using the tried-and-true methods left over from the Spanish Inquisition. Lefties were the targets, and in most cases were smacked with a ruler on their left hand. That only applied to the male students. Gee, I wonder why? Thus started a life-long resentment toward left-handed females.
After a while and a multitude of whacks, I got the general idea — use your other left hand, dummy! However, when I felt I was not being watched, I would take my crayon from my right hand as soon as the coast was clear and would stick it back in my left hand. I got caught a bunch of times and was punished by not allowing me to have our normal graham crackers and cold chocolate milk, which was never cold anyway because they stuck it on the heating radiator. To this day I can’t drink warm milk!
This lefty thing just wasn’t applied to learning the alphabet, but was extended to recess as well. Kick ball, ball tag, and catch were the big things then, and unfortunately I would kick the ball left- or right-footed and throw the softball with either hand. This got the attention of the recess monitor, who was really short, rather rotund, and reminded me of a rather large penguin. She would blow her whistle and yell “ J.J. ’What do you think you’re doing?” As punishment, I had go all over playground and pick up and bag the equipment. This task would make me late for class and cause even more consternation from the power structure.
On more than one occasion, I was sent home with a note pinned to my shirt describing my disturbing attitudes and displayed disobedience, which was considered anarchy and an attempt to over-throw the school hierarchy. Sometimes on the walk home, I would just “can” the note pretend like nothing untoward had happened. I would get sent to my room as discipline, pull out my crayons, my coloring book and spend the next two hours filling in the blank spots, you got it, left-handed. After about three months, one of my parents was called in and I was described as incorrigible and summarily booted out of kindergarten. I was really disappointed because I had been chosen as the leader of the ”stick and triangle” band, which was surely the last straw because I kept time with my left hand!
Needless to say, I was not one of the favorites at home but to be candid about it, I really didn’t give a damn because I wasn’t that worried about getting smacked on the wrist. I had actually grown very tired of graham crackers with warm chocolate milk! I won’t mention the brand name of the graham crackers nor the milk because they don’t sponsor this blog.
At any rate, I was beginning to grow into manhood, so I thought, at about six or seven and my brain finally made a decision. I became somewhat right-hand dominant, almost – maybe. I would still do many things left-handed, such as athletics, which rather than being thought of as a nasty handicap was deemed by the “jocks” as an asset. Now my brain was really screwed up!
To add to my dilemma, I was about 11 years old and having trouble in my studies. The general complaint of the educational system was I very often got things backwards and my handwriting was slanted the wrong direction. “What the hell difference does that make if you can read it,” was a question that occurred to me. But I knew if I mentioned this objection, considering the progressive methods and nature of the school I was in, that I would summarily be chucked out once again. Tests showed that I wasn’t stupid, but was still considered backwards. Oops! You have to love the thought processes of those progressive teachers during my youth.
I was eventually diagnosed as semi-dyslexic and was really upset because I figured people with that inflection had to go to prison or possibly even be burned at the stake (if I had lived during that period of the Spanish Inquisition)! I finally got a teacher who attempted to build my self-esteem by telling me about a whole bunch people who were probably dyslexic and left-handed, a really lethal combination. I had never heard of any of these people, so I was not overly impressed. The only one I could equate to was Babe Ruth, and I really wasn’t sure he could help me with my homework.
They sent me to one of the school psychiatrists or psychologists who scared me half to death, asked me a bunch questions, showed me a bunch of pictures and wrote back to the school that I was incorrigible. I think this guy must’ve been a buddy of that group that had the habits.
Time heals most things – not completely – but maybe almost. Being a good athlete helped me get through the balance of my “public school” experience.
To get around this problem, I used to carry a card that said “I am dyslexic and ambidextrous.” My peer group used to tease me because they thought it might be infectious. It was a ploy! I have to admit I had a lazy mind! I was bored stiff and was 13 going on 22, I thought. I managed to get through high school barring these existing cultural misconceptions with reasonably good grades, in spite of this so-called handicap, which I milked to the nth degree. Anytime I got trouble, I’d whip up this card and would be forgiven, or the inquisitor would be of the impression that I was a foreign exchange student.
I graduated from high school when I was 15, not because I was smart, but because they were fed up and wrote on my transcripts “this student is incorrigible, but is infected by dyslexia and is ambidextrous and should be monitored closely.” What a hell of a way to start life.
At that point in time you could not get a job unless you had a work permit, and you had to be at least 16 to get that. Although I had the grades, I wasn’t sure that college was for me, mainly because of the experience that I had with the enlightened education system. I lied about my age and went into the military, feeling very strongly that there was a place for a guy who was ambidextrous and dyslexic.
My first indication that this was not to be the case was when the drill instructor, commonly known as the DI, would call out the cadence “gimme — your right, your left – gimme your right your left” which is English for whatever the hell he was actually saying. These guys had a language of their own and I think this is on purpose, so they could punish us for not understanding what they were saying.
Naturally I came to the attention of this wonderful intellectual individual because in his words “JJ, you *#%&* meat head! Don’t you know your left from your right, boy!” I almost answered “no,” but thought better of it because I figured I’d be a cleaning out the little boys’ room, which should read latrine, for the rest of my enlistment. I finally got the hang of it and had developed a skill set that improved my relationship with the military. I qualified on the rifle range with about as high of score as one could get, and the thing that tickled them pink, that doesn’t quite fit, is I could do this either left-handed or right-handed. I was tempted to do it shooting through my legs while upside down, but was talked out of it by a nasty mouth Master Sergeant noting what he would do with my lower body parts. The politest thing he called me was smart ass! I managed to live through this military era and will write about that in another story that has nothing to do with right-brain, left-brain activity.
In college, I majored in engineering and I have to tell you it was one hell of a challenge because a disconnected, incorrigible, ambidextrous, dyslexic engineer can be an absolute, unmitigated disaster. In my last year at college we were required to design a basic battery charger and my professor took one look at my design, and said “JJ, you idiot, that’s a fuse!” I made the mistake of asking why, and he responded “because every time you plug it in, it’ll blow up.” My first job was in aerospace, and I think it was shortly after, that we fell behind in the race for space. Not true! When you have a handicap like that, you pay close attention to what you’re doing, and believe it or not, sometimes it’s an advantage. I eventually got out of engineering and went into management and really screwed things up, but that’s another story.
So there, that’s my story, spelled rationalization — and I’m sticking to it. I’ve been accused of having a brain that’s in the middle and am not sure if that’s good or bad. Blue-eyes was aware of this phenomenon and her only comment was, “You’re really weird, you know that!” My answer was always, inasmuch as I was a left-brain idiot, “Yes dear!”
Moral of the story is “What’s left is right, but not necessarily correct.”
J.J. Addingnuttin 