Southpaw

I am a right-hander, but four years ago I started to use my left hand mainly. You know, life in hospital and taking care of my mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, at home are boring. There is no challenge in my life. Using chopsticks with my left hand is interesting. Every meal is a challenge; beans, tofu and fish are especially difficult and interesting.

People who met me for the first time in these last four years might assume that I am a left-hander. Ha-ha, I tricked you! Actually I am a right-hander!

In these last four years, I found that most people don’t care which hand I use. There was only one person outside my family who realized and pointed out that I had switched from my right to left hand.

 On that day, I was eating lunch with a big group. The person was on a different table, but after the meal he came up to me and said:

“Mr. Miura, surely you’re a right-hander. Why did you eat with your left hand?”

I said I didn’t have any actual reason. I did this just for fun. He roared with laughter.

I was interested in him. How had he known I was using a different hand to normal?

 He was an amateur baseball player. I am not very familiar with baseball, but I had heard that for baseball players, whether one is a right-hander or left-hander is an important point. He had the habit of paying attention to which hand people prefer to use.

 He really liked my hobby. After that incident, he started introducing me to other people like this:

“This is Mr. Miura. He is a practicing southpaw, but he doesn’t play baseball.”

Is this interesting to baseball players?

 

Picture by KAZU