Write Right 0
Daniel Ruth is taken aback by the fuss over Jack Lew’s signature. (In the spirit of empirical investigation, I just fished a few bills out of my wallet and was mildly surprised to see reasonably legible signatures, but, really, who looks at the darned signature anyway, other than persons trying to spot counterfeits? Lighten up, already.)
I have a certain sympathy for Lew’s penmanship plight.
I was born left-handed. In grade school during the 1950s, the Sisters of the Blessed Waterboarding would come around with a ruler and whack anyone consumed enough by Satan to attempt to use their southpaw to write.
Consequently, after being forced to use my right hand by the Sisters of the Holy Vigilantes, my handwriting is a mystery even to me. About an hour before I started to type this, I was in an editorial board meeting with Hillsborough school superintendant MaryEllen Elia. My notes from that meeting would stump even a CIA code-breaker.
My parents told me that my grandfather was similarly forced to write right-handed, though this would have been in public schools over a century ago.
He resented it until the day he died.
